


Sanctify

by crinklefries



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Cruel Intentions AU, Heavy Drinking, Human AU, M/M, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Movie AU, Prep School AU, Sexual Situations, Slow Burn, Step-siblings, at least they're hot i guess, copious amounts of unresolved sexual tension, heavy drug use, many revenge plots, minor Sif/Valkyrie, minor Thor/Baldur, no consequences for entitled rich boys, no one gets a happy ending except for them, religious irreverence, sexual innuendo, stepbrothers in lust and love, teenage debauchery, thor and loki are absolutely assholes in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-14 18:44:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16498166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries
Summary: Saint Asgardia Preparatory School, where the rich grow more vicious and the most vicious are crowned kings.Thor, the son of a prominent politician, and Loki, the son of a socialite, are stepbrothers by marriage, and savage by choice. Fearing no consequences, surrounded only by thoughts of hedonism and ascensions to power, they hold an ironclad grip over St. Asgardia’s.But when the two find themselves unexpectedly humiliated and in need of revenge, they turn to each other and make a bet: to ruin the lives of those who have wronged them the most.The stakes are high. If Loki wins, Loki takes his most beloved possession; and if Thor wins, he gets what he’s wanted all along--his stepbrother.In the games of the rich and the vicious, everyone will burn except the kings themselves.





	Sanctify

**Author's Note:**

> You know when you're watching a movie and think this movie is outdated and ridiculous and slightly problematic, but also it's absolutely amazing and would benefit from a different ending? That's what it feels like watching Cruel Intentions as an adult. 
> 
> _What a ridiculous and terrible and wonderful movie,_ I thought while watching it one weekend. _The step siblings should have gotten together. Also, this movie should have propelled Sarah Michelle Gellar into international stardom._
> 
> I digress.
> 
> One really fun Thorki Big Bang later, I'm happy to add to the Internet the Thorki Cruel Intentions AU that was honestly begging to be written.
> 
> **
> 
> \+ Thank you to [sassguardian](http://sassguardian.tumblr.com), my collab partner-in-Thorki-crime for this challenge. Riko made an absolutely lethal fanmix + album cover for this fic that is delicious and to die for. Check out her fanmix [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6wvrttehsg7aIojxzUUxsa?si=f6JeVbjQTna05RKRwsqceg)!
> 
> \+ Thank you also to [brosamigos](________), who I was able to enlist to write the thoroughly satisfying ending these two assholes did not deserve, but did certainly get.
> 
> \+ Shout out also to the [Thorki Big Bang Mods](https://thorkibigbang.tumblr.com/) for pioneering a much-needed Big Bang in the Thorki fandom. :)
> 
> **
> 
>  Lastly, I'd like to put out a **warning** for this fic:
> 
> ***Please note that because this is a Cruel Intentions AU, there will be many scenes that take place in a Catholic school and there will be quite a bit of religious irreverence. I don’t think this work counts as underaged per se, but it is a high school AU as well, so Thor will be 18 and Loki 17. Finally, this is not a fic where the good guys win. Thor and Loki are privileged, entitled, absolute assholes and they do not and will never face consequences for this actions.***
> 
> If any of that bothers you, I would skip over this! 
> 
> Thanks for reading & enjoy! ♥

*

_office building, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

His therapist is a socially awkward nerd of a man who wears purple button ups that are rolled to the elbows, either to show that he’s relateable or because someone hasn’t told him that no one’s going to fuck him once they see how fucking hairy his arms are. Or maybe women past their prime like that kind of thing. He wears glasses that he takes off and cleans whenever he receives an answer he doesn’t like and when he puts them back on, for just a moment, his eyes appear three times larger than they should be. He looks a bit like a purple bug, perplexed and completely unaware that he’s going to be under someone’s heel very soon. His name is Bruce Banner and the shrink community calls him the Gentle Giant or something, but Thor’s not a fucking idiot, Sif knows how to work her way around a computer better than most two-bit NYPD investigators. The Gentle Giant has quite the history of aggression, including one or two restraining orders and a misdemeanor for assault that he had to serve like 200 hours of community service or something for during college.

Everyone has a dark side, even socially awkward nerds who fill their expensive Upper East Side shrink offices with boring tomes of books no one in their right mind would read and an actual, honest-to-god leather chaise. Like one of those with the little button holes in them. Thor presses his thumb into the holes whenever Dr. Banner asks him a stupid question like, _how’s it going?_ or _have you thought about keeping a journal of your feelings, like we talked about?_ or _why don’t you tell me how you feel about your father?_

Thor can’t exactly say _my father is the asshole who forced me to come to your godforsaken office to deal with your godforsaken purple shirts and your godforsaken fucking stupid-as-shit questions_ so usually he just smiles at Dr. Banner and answers something bland like _oh, we had a good conversation last night_ and thumbs the button holes on the chaise, even though the real answer would be something like _my father the senator does not have time for anyone he is not currently fucking or fucking over._ Although, Thor supposes, he could count as the latter, but he digresses.

“You think I don’t know?” Dr. Banner smiles mildly at Thor over the top of his notepad and Thor, who’s been running an internal monologue about the man’s stupid fucking purple shirt, almost startles.

He plasters on a fake as botox smile and tilts his head.

“Sorry, Doc. I didn’t catch that.”

“Kinda hard to catch anything with, you know, all of that internal monologue,” Dr. Banner says. He watches Thor mildly, patiently.

It rankles Thor, irritation rippling through him fast and angry.

“What internal monologue?” Thor asks calmly, almost sweetly.

“The one about how--let me guess, how stupid I am? What a waste of time this is?” Dr. Banner says. A frown barely flickers across Thor’s face. “I’m a psychiatrist, Thor. You might think you’re smart, but I’m smarter.”

Thor watches the Doc blankly. Someone bland enough to be called The Gentle Giant shouldn’t have the balls to call him out like this, but Thor supposes if he’d actually thought Banner was a doormat, he would have eaten him alive already. Just talk to any of his last, oh, half a dozen therapists. _Last chance_ , his father’s one eye had glared at him angrily the last time Odin had deigned to talk to his only biological son. _If he dumps you, that’s the end of the line._ Which was bullshit, because was it Thor’s fault every shrink he’d had so far couldn’t handle a seventeen year old with borderline sociopathic tendencies?

Oh he wasn’t really a sociopath, he would leave that honor to his stepbrother, but he did enjoy playing the part when he was bored. It was fun to watch adults scuttle away from him in horror.

Thor was almost always looking for fun because he found most things in this world to be dreadfully boring.

“So tell me, Doc,” Thor finally says and stretches back along the chaise. “If you’re so smart. What’s my problem? Am I a sociopath? Psychopath? Narcissist?”

Dr. Banner snorts at that.

“You have an inflated sense of ego, sure,” he says. “But nothing so dramatic. You’re bored. You’re lost. Adrift. You’re searching for something and you haven’t found it yet.”

It’s Thor’s turn to snort.

“You sound like a fortune cookie,” he says.

“Is it your father?” Dr. Banner asks. “Is it his approval you crave?”

“Fuck Odin,” Thor says. Well, Thor’s all big talk really, but they both know that. He doesn’t crave Odin’s approval, but it is in his best interest to strive for it every once in a while.

“Sure. What about your stepmother, Farbauti? Or your step brother, Loki?”

Thor has a sudden flash of long legs, pale and bare by the pool at midnight. Not that he’s watched those legs in any kind of capacity, the miles of soft, smooth skin. He stops himself from following those legs higher. His shrink’s office is not the ideal place for a boner.

“What about them?” he counters.

“No?” Dr. Banner says. His eyes flicker to Thor’s neck and Thor reaches for it unconsciously. It’s a small Nordic hammer, silver, with the word _worthy_ engraved along the side, hanging from a silver chain. Mjolnir is her name.

“Do you want to talk about your mother today?” Dr. Banner asks.

Thor feels a heady rush, like a thick cold settling into his brain. His vision blurs for a second and his breathing picks up for a beat. He pushes it all back before they can wash over him.

“No,” he says coldly. “I think our session is over.”

Dr. Banner looks up at the stupid clock on his wall, as though it’s only now occurred to him that this might be part of his duty.

“You’re right,” he says in surprise. He smiles at Thor, as though they’re fucking friends or something. “We’ll save that for next time.”

 _Over my dead body_ , Thor seethes on the inside.

“Yeah, Doc,” Thor says, sweet as coffee grounds. “Next time.”

  
Thor makes it out of Dr. Banner’s office and down the hallway to the elevator before his fury boils over. He slams his fist against the wall next to the elevator buttons once and then, when that doesn’t alleviate his anger, again.

The elevator light dings and the door next to him slides open. Glowering, he steps into the elevator.

Where he punched the wall, plaster crumbles around a shape like a fist.

This was all Odin’s fucking fault anyway.

U.S. Senator Odin Borsson with his dead wife and fuck up son who looked like he could be an All-American Boy or a viking god if he didn’t spend most of his weekends drinking and doing stupid shit, like getting into brawls at bars he was too young to be at or taking and crashing one of his father’s inordinately expensive cars or getting caught with hookers in public or that time Odin nearly killed him after the paparazzi found him at a gay club.

That wasn’t exactly the way Thor had planned to come out to his father, but Odin could hardly publicly berate his son for the incident without coming across as a homophobic fuck. What do Democratic voters like less than Fox News and the Second Amendment? Homophobic elected officials, he guessed.

Anyway, Thor and Fandral had kind of gotten fucked up and Thor had taken Odin’s favorite Tesla and it wasn’t even like he fucking crashed the car, just got pulled over for a DUI for running three red lights in a row and that was it for the old man.

 _I’m done with these childish antics_ , Odin had glowered, angrier than Thor had ever seen him, pulling his already large body even larger than life, all shadow and fire and brimstone. His one eye had nearly caught on fire and Thor had swallowed and taken a step back. _You are going to pull yourself together or I’m going to do it for you._

Thor hadn’t even had a chance to ask how the fuck Odin had planned to do _that_ , because his father had answered for him.

 _If you want your inheritance, you will follow my rules. No more fuck ups. No more drinking. No more drugs. No more prostitutes. You will go to school, you will get perfect grades. You will have an SAT score high enough to get into an Ivy League school and you will get into an Ivy League school and, no, I won’t help you do it. You will go to this therapist_. Odin had handed him a business card -- DR. BRUCE BANNER, CLINICAL PSYCHIATRIST. _And you will get your shit together. This is your last chance. You will not get another one._

Thor had almost ripped up the business card to spite his father to his face, but Odin genuinely looked as though he could have killed his only son with no compunction. Even Thor, as stupid and belligerent as he could be, wasn’t quite stupid enough to challenge an already riled Odin Borsson.

 _Yes sir_ , Thor had said instead, words ground out like chewing through shards of glass.

So here he was, seeing a fucking shrink, getting ready for school, and trying to decide if he could fuck his way into an Ivy League school. Thor wasn’t good at many things, but he was excellent at fucking.

“Searching for something,” Thor scoffs as he stares at the elevator numbers go down, one by one.

Yeah, he’s searching for something all right, he thinks.

Something to keep him from dying from the unending claustrophobia of boredom.

  
*

_penthouse, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Bright blonde hair spills across the top of her head, glinting for a moment in the setting afternoon sun. The sunlight streams in soft and lazy through the high windows and glass doors, stretching from floor to ceiling and looking out into the perennial Manhattan frenzy. For a moment he’s mesmerized by gold hitting gold, her face momentarily disappeared behind a long curtain of of, well, gold. Then he hears a sharp sniffing sound and Amora’s blue eyes emerge, brighter and more wicked than before.

She sniffs once or twice, brushes away any residue from her nose, and then reaches across the table for a glass. Loki watches, bemused, as her silver cross, just smaller than her palm, rests against her bare clavicle.

“Is there no end to your blasphemy?” he asks after a moment, amused. For his part, he runs a finger around the rim of his glass. There’s amber liquid pooled at the bottom, although he cannot quite remember what it is at this point.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Amora says and tips back whatever’s in her glass. “I am very religious, just ask Papa.”

Amora’s father was a notorious mob boss, who single-handedly held the monopoly for cocaine supply to Manhattan and the majority of Brooklyn. He would flood the markets Monday, collect rent and back rent Wednesday, order hits out on Friday, and embrace religion just long enough to go to mass on Sunday. He spent most of his time forgetting he had a wife and daughter, but when he did remember, Amora made sure his baby girl was a devout, pearl-wearing angel and not the coke-supplying whore of Saint Asgardia Preparatory School.

Loki snorts and considers his own high. Everything looks sharper than normal and his brain, already unrelentingly loud, is racing with observations. The lazy setting sun. Amora’s golden hair. The little scar just under the right side of her jaw from the time she dated that asshole who had cut her with a shattered bottle of beer. He hadn’t lasted very long at all once Loki had found out. The length of his black nails. They would need to be trimmed. The white residue left on the table from their afternoon activities. 

Loki thinks, briefly, about his elevated heart rate and whether he is courting some kind of distasteful end to this meaningless existence, but then he decides if he can be morose, he can withstand another hit.

“Give it to me,” he says and holds out a palm.

Amora laughs and falls back onto the couch, her hair spreading across her shoulders and the back of the white leather.

“Come and get it, lover.”

Loki rolls his eyes and considers rebuking her, but, no. He’s too high and drunk and why not have a little bit of fun?

He gets up from his own ottoman, straightens his $500 low-cut shirt and lowers himself on top of her, straddling her thighs.

“Ooh,” Amora laughs and the long line of her throat is pale, extended to him.

Loki leans forward, over her, traces down the length with his thumb. He hooks a nail into the little scar and presses and Amora shivers under him.

Then he continues, with his entire palm, until it comes to rest on top of the cross, just above her breasts.

“Darling,” he says and lowers his mouth until it’s hovering just above her own.

“Yes?” Amora asks, bright-eyed and breathless.

He wraps his fingers around her necklace and yanks it off.

“Thank you,” he grins and she manages to deflate and sigh _and_ pout as he slides off of her.

“All the good ones are gay,” Amora complains and Loki snorts.

“You wouldn’t be a very good Catholic girl if you didn’t wait until marriage, now would you?” Loki asks. “I’m only trying to help.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Amora says and twists her blonde hair around her fingertip. “We wouldn’t want my eternal soul to burn because I like _sex_.”

Loki slides into the seat beside her and carefully unscrews the top of the cross.

“There seems to be no hope for _my_ eternal soul, however,” Loki grins and pours a little of the white powder into the cap.

“The homosexuals will burn first,” Amora agrees and crosses herself. “And then the divorcees. And then anyone who has an abortion.”

“What about the fornicators?” Loki asks. He lowers his nose to the cap.

“I wouldn’t know anything about them,” Amora says, flashing him a grin. “I am pure and virginal.”

Loki nearly laughs while snorting the cap full of cocaine. He does it without incident, however, and then, in the buzzy aftermath, he melts back onto the couch with Amora. She slides into him and he humors her by putting his arm around her shoulder.

“Sure,” he says. “As virginal as I am heterosexual.”

“One can only dream,” Amora says wistfully and the two of them sit a while, their heads rushing and their blood singing in their veins.

  
Eventually, Amora ruins it, because she’s a raging bitch and getting high only makes her pleasant for about ten minutes. At some point, she must start worrying that someone on the island of Manhattan will forget that she’s a raging bitch, because she tilts her head onto Loki’s shoulder and mentions the only name guaranteed to bring him crashing back down to Earth.

“Baldur seems to be taking his presidential duties terribly seriously,” she says with a smile.

Loki, who had been running through all of the ways he could manipulate Headmaster Tyr this upcoming year, immediately feels himself sour.

“What of it?” Loki asks waspishly.

“Did you not see his email?” Amora laughs. “A beginning of the year email, to welcome all of the freshmen and get our year off to—what was it? A united and blessed start?”

“If he loses one more brain cell, he runs the risk of actually becoming interesting,” Loki says in derision.

“It seems well-received,” Amora says idly. She has her cell phone back in her hands and she’s scrolling through her Facebook feed. “Everyone we know is so terribly—”

“Dull?” Loki provides.

“—enthusiastic,” Amora finishes. She picks some post and lets Loki see it.

It is that idiot Freyr: _Gonna be the beast year huh prez!!_

“Freyr failed half of his classes last year, _including_ remedial English,” Loki says, unimpressed.

“How do you fail remedial English?” Amora asks, tilting her head back and looking upside down at Loki.

“By being an idiot whose name differs by a single letter from your twin sister,” Loki says. “Not that he has the brain cells to notice.”

Loki has known the twins since middle school and since then he has not once called Freyr by his given name and not once has Freyr noticed. Absolute moron. Loki was surrounded by them.

“Anyway, I think Baldur’s popularity has increased, somehow,” Amora says. She sounds bored now, which Loki understands, but he’s not the one who brought up that halfwit. “Apparently our classmates prefer dweebs.”

Maybe it’s the coke, but that suddenly has Loki so angry he can barely breathe with it. He nearly slams a fist down on the coffee table in front of them.

“ _Baldur is a complete waste of space!_ ”

“A complete waste of space who is going to Yale,” Amora says and she knows exactly what she’s doing, because she has the most shit-eating tone to accompany her perfectly mild and innocent grin.

“Fuck. You,” Loki says aloud and Amora bats her eyelashes at him.

“You have only to say when, lover.”

This—no, _this_ really gets Loki angry because it is _his_ place to secure admission to Yale, he is the one with the perfect grade point average, he is the one who has spent the past two fucking years sucking up to every unbearable, insipid teacher and leading student organizations and _volunteering_ , as though the proper solution to hunger wouldn’t be just to let the poor starve to death. Scarcity of resources, supply and demand, the population boom, Loki’s taken and aced economics, he understands the math of it all, even if these useless soup kitchens don’t. If there is too little food and too many people, then let the people die and there will no longer be too little food. It’s math so simple even Baldur could do it. Which, speaking of—

“That _idiot_ at Yale,” he says loudly, snapping into the air. Next to him, he can almost _feel_ Amora’s glee, although she has the wherewithal to hide it behind a glass of something clear. “He can barely string together two sentences. His entire campaign slogan was _A Vote for Baldur is a Vote for St. Asgardia’s_. Can you imagine anything more--”

“Boring?” Amora suggests. “Plain?”

“ _Simple!_ ” Loki splutters. “Only a _simpleton_ would come up with something so pathetically uncreative.”

“Well it worked,” Amora says, sounding bored again. She takes a sip of whatever’s in her glass. “And now he has Tyr’s recommendation.”

The Headmaster personally knew the Dean of Admission at Yale, had struck a relationship with him when they had been in graduate school together at, ironically, Harvard about twenty years ago. It was known to all of St. Asgardia’s that Tyr could use that relationship to his advantage once per graduating class and it was also known that he would use it only for whosoever was elected as student body president. St. Asgardia’s had had only one female student body president in the past ten years and certainly no person of color, so the entire thing stunk of racism, misogyny, and the old boy’s club, not that anyone would ever accuse Tyr of it. His policy was simple enough and, technically, fair—one simply had to win the student body election and Tyr would dial his friend’s number.

That, of course, assumed the student body wasn’t full of shit-for-brains shitgibbons.

Did he use the same word twice in one insult?

Loki scowls at the ceiling, aggrieved at Baldur and St. Asgardia’s and fucking _Tyr_ and now, apparently, his inability to come up with sufficiently vicious insults for the occasion.

“If only we knew someone who spends his time ruining other people’s lives,” Amora says. She’s scrolling through her Facebook feed again, bored and slightly pouting. Amora pouts whenever Loki doesn’t give her the full attention she desires, when she desires it.

“If I knew _how_ to ruin that oaf’s life, don’t you think I would have done so by now?” Loki glowers.

The fact of the matter is that Loki _had_ tried to ruin Baldur’s life, at least four times over, both before the results of the student body election and then, of course, after. He had tried to spread the rumor that Baldur had knocked a girl up ignominiously, but no one had believed him capable. So then he had tried to spread the rumor that Baldur was an incel, but the idiot could barely work a computer, let alone run the Reddit subthread Loki had started in his name. Then he had tried to manufacture a complicated scenario with a fake secret admirer, who so happened to be Amora, and being stood up for the end of the year formal, but Baldur had so many women desperate to get into his vanilla pants, that all he had to do was show up to the dance, look sheepish for about ten seconds, and then no less than _three_ girls were immediately on his arms.

Loki considered releasing false medical records showing Baldur had a variety of STIs, but, god, why bother? No one ever believed any ill of him and any time he came remotely close to an embarrassing situation, his legions of dim-witted fans would appear to suck his dick.

No, every time Loki tries to make some kind of a move against Baldur, Baldur seems only to become more popular, more beloved. It’s enough to make Loki want to burn the entire godforsaken island down.

“Loki? Earth to Loki?” Amora tries snapping her fingers in front of Loki’s face.

“I’m thinking too small,” he murmurs aloud. “Everything I have been trying—it’s all childish. I need something bigger. Higher stakes.”

“What are you going to do, get him expelled?” Amora rolls her eyes.

“Hm,” Loki says, the coke helping brighten and fire different synapses in his brain. His eyes widen and he smiles. He feels a little giddy. “That is not the worst—”

Suddenly, the elevator to the penthouse dings and the doors slide open.

Loki doesn’t have to tilt his head back to know who it is—is stepbrother moves with all of the grace of a stampeding herd of hungry hippopotamuses.

He just hears a loud, undignified, angry groan and the sound of a leather jacket hitting the wall and falling to the ground.

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose and tries not to sigh his impatience aloud.

“Whatever your undoubtedly unparalleled woes, I do not think the _penthouse_ did anything to insult you.”

“Loki,” Thor says, coming to a smooth stop. Loki can hear him cross his arms across his broad chest. “Amora.”

“Oh, my _other_ lover,” Amora nearly purrs.

Loki wrinkles his nose with distaste. That, at least, is factually correct. Thor sleeps with anything with a heartbeat and Amora, it so happens, has quite the robust heart. Also, Loki supposes, she’s objectively hot as sin, if crazier than a bag of wet cats.

“Miss me?” Amora asks.

“No,” Thor says bluntly.

Well, Loki might have let slip to Thor about the bag of wet cats thing. It had been a one and done kind of fuck, not that Amora knows why Thor had never again been inclined to crawl into bed with her.

“Mean,” Amora says.

“I need to talk to my brother,” Thor says. “Can you leave?”

“Step brother,” Loki reminds him. Amora looks put out, but begins gathering her things. She reaches for her cross necklace, but Loki closes his long fingers over it. “I will be keeping this. _Lover_.”

“Ugh,” Amora says. “You’re both the fucking worst.”

“I love you too, darling,” Loki says sweetly. Which he most certainly does not, but Amora is better than most of the morons at St. Asgardia’s, so why not?

“I’ll send Baldur your love,” Amora says after standing and gathering her who-knows-how-expensive Celine clutch to her side.

“You’re a cunt,” Loki says pleasantly and Amora blows him a kiss.

“Call me,” she says to Thor as she walks past him, a hand trailing his bicep as she does. She gets into the elevator and disappears with a flip of her hair.

“How do you stand her?” Thor asks, looking after her, puzzled and displeased.

“You’re the one who fucked her, you tell me,” Loki says. He takes the cross necklace and slides it over his head onto his neck.

“Have you finally found God?” Thor asks, watching Loki with an eyebrow raised.

“Oh yes,” Loki says, with a smile. “I found him way up _high_.”

Thor snorts and then runs a hand through his hair. It doesn’t have the audacity to stick up, but it does have the nerve to fall out of its bun and into perfect waves around his shoulders. Honestly, Thor is infuriating in most ways, but it’s this—the sheer _nerve_ of him to look the way he does—that often has Loki looking to pick a fight with him.

He’s too high to pick a needless fight currently, but the thought does occur to him.

Thor just looks at him, almost pleadingly, and Loki nearly lets out a sigh of disgust.

“Fine.”

Thor’s expression changes from beseeching to a shadow of relief. He strides over to the couch and collapses onto it with a groan, his head in Loki’s lap, his legs sprawls across the leather arm at the other end.

“Hard day at the office?” Loki asks. “How many reputations have you ruined today?”

“None,” Thor says.

“Is this sexual frustration?”

Thor rolls his eyes.

“It’s life frustration,” he says and then it’s Loki’s turn to roll his eyes. “I had _therapy_.”

“Ah yes,” Loki says, suddenly understanding. “Your Odin-mandated shrink.”

“It’s a waste of my time,” Thor complains. Then he tips his head back so Loki can see the blue of his eyes. “I need to be touched.”

“I bet you do,” Loki smirks, but he places his hand in Thor’s hair anyway.

His stepbrother—of three years—is impetuous and hot-tempered and deeply tactile. His father hasn’t seemed to notice, but Loki had barely spent two weeks with him in that giant penthouse before he had realized that the best way of bringing Thor down from one of his rages was simply to touch the back of his neck. Thor would heave, his veins nearly popping, take a deep, shuddering breath, and nearly melt into calm at Loki’s touch.

It works now too, Thor tilting his head back more comfortably into Loki’s lap, a little sigh escaping his lips as Loki runs his fingers through blond hair.

“The doctor thinks I’m _bored_ and _searching_ for something,” Thor grumbles. He raises his fingers up in front of him in air quotes. “Adrift.”

“Are you a boat?” Loki asks, amused.

“I can’t believe they give people degrees for being doctors of bullshitting,” Thor says venomously.

“That sounds ideal for you, dear brother,” Loki cackles and drags his fingernails against Thor’s scalp.

“Stepbrother,” Thor says automatically and Loki nearly preens, pleased. Thor is about as easy to train as a cow in heat, but apparently even cows can learn. “Do that again.”

“Someone is feeling demanding,” Loki says. He slides his fingers out of Thor’s hair and down the side of his face, tracing along the curves of his cheekbones and down his jaw.

Thor half watches the movement and half watches Loki, his pulse drumming higher under Loki’s fingertips. Loki presses a thumbnail against Thor’s pulse point and his step brother's eyes flash darker.

“Have you tried fucking him?” Loki asks, his voice low. He slides his index finger under Thor’s chin and tilts his head back far enough that his Adam’s Apple strains against his skin.

“No,” Thor says. His breathing is a little harsher now, the dark of his pupils quickly overtaking the blue.

“Why not?” Loki smiles wider. “Do you not remember Dr.—what was her name?”

Thor swallows and Loki watches that bulge at his throat bob up and down. It’s mesmerizing.

“Sigyn,” Thor answers.

“Yes, her,” Loki says.

“Not the same,” Thor says lowly. “Not supposed to--fuck the therapist again. Last chance.”

Loki lets his hand drift lower, past the simple, silver chain around Thor’s neck, until it dips under Thor’s shirt. His fingertips skim the soft skin of Thor’s chest.

“Loki,” Thor says, all rough and guttural.

A thrill runs through Loki and he lets a fingertip scrape over a nipple.

Thor tenses, breathing shallow, all taut, like he could come by Loki’s careless touch alone.

Loki leans over him, nearly mouth to mouth, and lets another nail brush over his nipple.

“ _Loki_ ,” Thor says again, and how can he be nearly wrecked when Loki has barely touched him?

Loki leans closer, a breath away, and then he clasps the little charm at the end of Thor’s necklace.

Immediately, Thor snaps out of it.

He roughly shoves himself up and away from Loki. Loki loses the grip on the little necklace charm and tips his head back and laughs.

“Asshole,” Thor grumbles. His own hand goes around the end of the necklace. He takes the charm and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, a small little hammer with a Nordic inscription along the side.

“I will get it from you one day,” Loki says, leaning back against the couch, pleased, languorous.

“I’ll kill you first,” Thor says, although it isn’t with much heat behind it. He tucks his beloved necklace under his shirt again.

“I should like to see you try,” Loki says. Then he yawns. “Would you like some coke?”

“Not right now,” Thor says stiffly and gets up.

“Oh come on,” Loki says. “I was only having a little fun.”

“You’ve had enough fun,” Thor says. “Clean this up. Your mother wants us to dine with her tonight.”

That makes Loki sour, but only a little.

“Will wonders never cease?” he says aloud. He gets up too and tucks his cross necklace under his own shirt. “The devil works hard, but Farbauti works harder.”

Thor crosses the living room toward the hallway leading to his room and Loki can’t help but notice, with no little satisfaction, that he’s moving rather stiffly.

*

_sarabeth’s, central park south, manhattan, new york_

  
He’s running late because after suffering through five courses of Farbauti’s insipid observations about society and the decline of socialite etiquette, Thor and Loki had retired to Loki’s room where Thor had actually taken Loki up on that hit and Loki had sipped carefully on Merlot while Thor drank three bottles of beer.

He had woken up this morning to a raging headache, the correct sense that he’d slept through his alarm, and a desperate need to piss.

By the time he’d gotten himself mopped up enough to get to the black car downstairs, Thor was already at least five minutes late. Luckily, or unluckily in certain instances, Jane refuses to dine anywhere that matters, so he doesn’t have to show up to his usual places smelling like a brewery and disappointed expectations.

He doesn’t particularly like Sarabeth’s, but Jane can afford brunch there and she refuses to let him pay even though he’s offered, like an upstanding boyfriend, at least a dozen times. Anyway, at least it’s across the street from Central Park and it’s a nice day, so afterwards, he can maybe convince her to go across the street, find some corner under a tree, and let his hand crawl up her dress.

The car drops him off in front of the restaurant and he tells the driver he’ll call him when he needs him again. Thor runs a hand through his hair, shaking it just a little loose, just a little messy in its already messy bun, which he knows is exactly the way Jane likes it. He slides his Tom Ford aviators up to the top of his head and checks his phone for any lingering texts from Fandral before he spots the top of a very brown and very familiar head.

Jane Foster is one of those ugly duckling to swan stories that Thor’s always read about and never really believed in. A complete brain, she had been short, with glasses and braces, and mousy brown hair she always kept up in a bun because she was always in a science lab and needed her hair out of her eyes or something. Then, one summer, she had gone off to some weird nerd camp in France of all places and come back still short, but wearing contacts, braces gone, hair down, and a light tan in all of the right places. Thor had known her since middle school, but she had never caught his _eye_ before.

Oh sure, she rebuffed his advances like half a dozen times--something about him being vapid and shallow and only liking hot lays he could then brag about, but he had batted his eyes at her and somehow engineered himself into being her lab partner and she had found that he was actually really funny and could be kind in the right mood and anyway, when the sun in the science room hit his hair just so, he was wreathed in gold. Thor knew how good he looked and he milked it for every bit of its worth.

They had been dating for at least six months now, which Thor hadn’t found too distasteful, even though sometimes he would look at her, with her pretty face and pretty body and brain three times the size of her head and list of things she actually fucking _cared_ about and feel, well, if not bored, then a little disassociated. Fuck, was he actually adrift?

“Thor,” Jane says, looking up at him from their usual table. She had a cup of coffee in front of her because she woke up at like 6 am every day or something to journal her science thoughts in her science journal. There was probably a better way of explaining that, but Thor genuinely could not pay attention once the word _science_ came out of her mouth.

“Babe,” Thor says and he leans forward over the table to kiss her.

Jane, her hands still wrapped around her coffee mug, leans up to return the kiss. It tastes like bitter, black coffee and croissant.

“Did you already eat?” Thor frowns.

“I don’t know, Thor,” Jane says. She raises both of her eyebrows and takes a sip of coffee. “Do you think I ate something, an hour ago, when we were supposed to meet?”

Thor, his head still fuzzy, blinks rapidly at his girlfriend. He looks down at the table in front of them, no trace of food, only glasses of water and Jane’s very black coffee.

“I’m not that late,” he frowns and looks down at his wrist. Where his Rolex usually sits there’s nothing but a strip of light skin. “Ah, fuck.”

Jane sighs in exasperation.

“Are you still drunk? Were you drinking?” she raises just the single eyebrow and it’s so needlessly judgmental that Thor’s mood, already precarious with his hangover, darkens.

“I didn’t know I needed your permission to drink,” he says. Jane had a one drink on the weekend policy, which Thor found sanctimonious, but he didn’t harass her about her choices.

“I didn’t say you did,” Jane snaps at him. “Not that it would hurt you to go one day without.”

Thor bristles at that, but instead of saying anything, he simply leans forward toward her, then signals to the waiter passing beside them. He turns and gives him a smile.

“One bloody mary, _please_ ,” he says. “And a bottle of champagne, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Thor doesn’t look anywhere near 21, but if he’s learned one thing, being the son of Odin Borsson, it’s that an attractive white man can get anything he wants if he’s confident enough. As if to prove that very point, the waiter smiles at Thor.

“Of course,” he says and turns to fulfill the order.

“Oh, real mature,” Jane huffs out irritably.

“Sure, I aspire to be as boring as you one day,” Thor says. Jane’s eyes narrow, her cute little nose flares. Thor knows he’s being a dick, but he also really doesn’t care. His head is pounding, his mouth tastes like sand, and the last thing he needs is for his perfect, little vanilla girlfriend to judge him for a little indiscretion.

“Sometimes I don’t know who you are,” Jane says finally after she’s managed to take a few calm breaths. “Most of the time, I don’t think you do either.”

“What are you talking about?” Thor asks. He leans back in his chair. There’s some weird spot on the ceiling that he’s fixating on so he doesn’t have to look at Jane. Where’s his alcohol? Actually, he’s kind of hungry, should he order food?

“Thor,” Jane snaps. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Thor redirects his attention to her, not with a little reluctance.

“My god, it’s like talking to a child.” Jane takes in a short little breath and then exhales again. She takes a sip of her coffee and puts it down. “Thor, we need to talk.”

Now Thor is drunk and probably still a little high and he’s suddenly starving to boot, but he definitely knows what those words mean.

“Jane—” he starts, but it’s too little, too late because when Jane Foster decides on something, God Himself would have difficulty changing her mind otherwise.

“No, Thor,” she says. “Listen, this has been fun. I knew coming into this you would never be serious and I was right.”

“ _Jane_ —” Thor starts again, but Jane cuts him off.

“I wanted to have fun and I wanted to see if there was something there more than...what you present,” she says. “And there is, buried deep down. You can be sweet when you want to be and you’re actually surprisingly smart and god knows you look good with your clothes off, but you have a volatile temper, you’re completely unreliable, the company you keep is...lacking, and you have _no_ direction.”

Thor stares at her, mouth a little agape.

In between his brain short circuiting for words and Jane scrutinizing him, their waiter comes by and puts the bloody mary and a flute of champagne on the table. Thor doesn’t even think, he just grabs the champagne and throws it back in three gulps flat.

“ _Are you serious?_ ” Jane says and it’s not really a shriek and it’s not really a hiss, but it is some kind of exasperated mixture of the two.

“I need a drink,” Thor says when he reemerges. “If I’m going to deal with you.”

“Well, you don’t have to. Not anymore,” Jane says. She sets down her coffee mug and gets to her feet. “Grow up, Thor. The way you are now--it’s not cute. One day you’re going to wake up high and alone and realize everyone else has left you behind because they had real _feelings_ and _expectations_ and you couldn’t handle any of it.”

Something about that reverberates in Thor’s head, the words _real_ and _expectations_. _Grow up Thor_ , Odin had said, one blue eye electric and angry. _You’re too old to be acting like this. Grow up Thor_ , Jane says. _The way you are now—it’s not cute._

He starts shaking.

“Fuck. You,” Thor spits out.

Jane looks at him with a mixture of pity and disgust then and it makes him want to hurl, a bit. He has enough alcohol in his stomach to do it, anyway.

“If you ever manage to actually use that brain of yours instead of medicating it out of boredom or whatever it is you do, call me,” she says, very cold and very polite. “Until then, thanks for a fun six months. I’ll see you around.”

“I don’t—I don’t need your validation!” Thor flounders for words after her. Of course everyone around them is staring, but Thor is already halfway to drunk again, which is halfway more sober than he wants and plans on being.

Jane ignores him, of course. He watches her wind her way around the tables and already knows he’ll never again come back to this godforsaken two-bit hell hole.

In front of him, her coffee mug stares at him, half-full, a light pink ring of lipstick at the rim.

“Fuck,” he swears and immediately reaches for the bloody mary. He takes a large gulp of it and wishes for straight vodka instead. “ _Fuck!_ ”

He considers pulling his hair out in frustration, but he’s much too vain for that and why should he be punished because Jane can’t handle a little fun? Anyway, she’s _wrong_ . He’s not immature, he’s fucking young and he’s fucking fun, and if he wanted to be as dull as his fucking dad, he could be that too, but he doesn’t feel like acting like he’s a fucking lobotomy patient. He’s 18 fucking years old, he can drink a bit and party a bit and fuck around if he wants to. _It is his god-given right to do so_.

And fuck Jane Foster if she thinks otherwise. She and her unreachable standards could take Odin and go to hell with him.

Thor slams back the rest of the bloody mary and throws a wad of cash on the table.

He’s immediately dialing Fandral before he’s even out of the restaurant.

“It’s me,” he says sourly. “I want all the weed and vodka you have. Meet me at the loft. Bring cigarettes.”

*

  _sif’s loft, greenwich village, manhattan, new york_

Sif’s parents were both the named partners of an international law firm that specialized partially in international arbitration between multinational corporations and banks and partially in fundraising for the Republican Party. The law firm had been an inheritance from Sif’s grandfather, who hated bodegas, communists, the Democratic Party, and rap music, in that order. Her grandfather had since retired to become some kind of Republican Party shadow funder, but her parents had both taken the helm from them and Sif generally hated all of them, mostly because she was queer as fuck and both the Republicans and her parents hated that about her.

She responded to it by being as outwardly gay as possible with her girlfriend, Val, who was a chaotic bi whose mostly absentee parents had made their money creating some household item that she refused to name and who spent most of their time on vacation in Europe now, never mind their 17 year old minor daughter.

Anyway, Sif’s parents sucked, but they had bought her a sweet multi-million dollar loft in Greenwich Village, which Thor personally thinks they wanted to use as a bribe if she could just decide to not pursue her “lesbian” phase anymore. Of course it hadn’t worked, but it had gotten Sif out of the house and her parents had taken that as win enough.

Now, when Loki and Amora are using the family penthouse or Odin is back in town or Thor just needs to be _somewhere fucking else_ , he can send out a text and the guard downstairs will let him into Sif’s loft. Usually he comes alone, although he’s brought back a fuck or two when he hasn’t wanted to stumble all the way back to the Upper East Side. When he sends out a text, it’s usually because he needs to be high and he usually only wants to be high around his friends.

So once he sends out the summoning call, the group responds accordingly, never mind that it’s approximately 2 pm on the Sunday before school starts.

Around the center of the living room are multiple large, comfortable couches and recliners, framing a bright teal rug in a semi-circle. Above them, a skylight lets in bright sunlight, which glints off of Fandral’s light blond hair. He’s sitting on one of the couches next to Thor. Across from them, Hogun is in a recliner, Sif is on a love seat with Val sprawled across her lap, and Volstagg takes up an entire couch to himself.

“ _Fuck that_ ,” Thor growls out loud as Fandral passes him the joint. “If I wanted to date my father, I would—”

“Date your father?” Fandral giggles next to him.

Thor jabs him sharply in the side and his best friend yelps in pain.

“You know what I mean,” he says. He inhales, the end growing a red-orange spark. Then he passes the joint over to Sif.

“You knew it was going to end this way,” Sif says. “She was too—”

She waves her hand vaguely and doesn’t finish the sentence.

“She was hot,” Thor complains. “You remember how hot she was. Is. Whatever.”

“She was a brain,” Sif says and taps two fingers against her temple. “Never date a brain in high school. Wait until you’ve gotten all of the bad choices out of your system and then marry a brain.”

“What are you talking about?” Val says from her lap. She reaches up and takes the joint from her girlfriend, takes it into her mouth and inhales. “Jane didn’t dump Thor because she’s a brain, she dumped him because he’s a fucking mess.”

Thor glares at Valkyrie from his spot on the couch, but she just rolls her eyes. He can’t manage it for too long anyway, because she kinda scares him.

“I mean I don’t care,” Val says. “More entertainment for me. But between your—uh, conquests and your war with your father and your stepbrother—”

“What about him?” Thor frowns, distracted for a second.

“He’s a sociopath and it’s obvious—well, to me. No one else seems to notice,” Val shrugs and takes another breath before Sif takes the joint back. “I won’t tell.”

Thor is too deep in his own problems to think about this proclamation for more than a few seconds, but he files it away to think about later.

“Okay, whatever,” he says and reaches for another bottle of beer. “Do you have a point?”

“Listen, I don’t care,” Val says. “Personally I think she has a stick up her ass. But a girl like Jane is going to want the—boy next door. Prince Charming. Not.”

Here she looks at Thor pointedly.

“A fuckboy?” Fandral offers helpfully.

“Shut the fuck up!” Thor says and elbows Fandral again. Like Fandral has any standing to be talking about fuckboys. Thor doesn’t even know who he’s fucking this week.

“A fuckboy,” Val says with a clicking sound of her tongue and a finger gun pointed at Fandral.

“That’s Thor’s entire aesthetic, babe,” Sif says, running her fingers through Val’s hair. “It works for him.”

Thor sighs and takes a sip of beer.

“Or it did,” Sif smirks. “But now you’ve been dumped by a brain. Are you even—desirable anymore? You know how vicious high school is.”

The thought nearly stresses Thor out, or it would if he wasn’t high and disinclined to ever acknowledge a source of anxiety. High school _is_ vicious and, frankly, he has a lot on the line.

“Maybe you can join the mathletes,” fucking _Volstagg_ laughs and Thor almost throws a beer bottle at him.

Then he groans and slumps back onto the couch again.

“That fucking, stuck up _bitch_ ,” he nearly growls. “I’m _Thor Odinson_.”

“Yeah you are,” Sif says with another smirk.

“You tell ‘em,” Fandral snickers.

Hogun gives him a thumbs up, which, from Hogun, who offers an opinion maybe once a week, is nearly a scathingly mocking act.

“You’re all assholes,” Thor says. He runs a hand through his hair, thinking. “She doesn’t get the last say in this. I need—I need her back.”

Everyone raises an eyebrow at him, Hogun included.

“She’s not going to ruin my reputation,” Thor says, voice hard. “She doesn’t get to decide this relationship on her terms.”

Especially since Thor hadn’t wanted a relationship in the first place. Thor has never been one for commitment, short-term or long. But Jane had been so _hot_ and intelligent and even made him laugh sometimes. Her school stock was skyrocketing and not that Thor needed any more social capital, but it made her hotter to him.

She was more than his usual fucks, though. He would never have gotten her without dating her first. And then—well it hadn’t been so bad. Boring, maybe. A little bland. But ultimately it wasn’t the mind-numbing, soul-sucking relationship he had always feared. So it’s more than a little _fucked up_ that after all of that, it was Jane who had dumped _him_.

“Okay,” Val says. “I’m bored of this.”

She pulls down Sif for a messy and hard kiss and then finally pulls herself up. After a moment of adjusting her shirt, she reaches across the table for a beer of her own.

Then she leans forward, raising the bottle in cheers to Thor.

“So what’s the plan, fuckboy?”

Thor snorts. Valkyrie’s kind of a chaotic, crazy son of a bitch, but she’s all action and impulse and no thoughts. Thor can relate to that. Words are more Loki’s expertise. Him? When he’s mad, he just needs to do something about it.

So he looks at her grins.  

“We get me the girl,” Thor says. He raises his own bottle and clinks it against hers, then rolls his eyes. “And the college, I guess. To get the old man off my back.”

“Which one?” Fandral asks next to him. He has the joint again and he finishes it off, excitement lighting up his eyes.

Thor only thinks about it for a second. If he has to find a way to do this bullshit, he might as well reach as high as he can go. He’s Thor fucking Odinson, for Christ’s sake.

He finishes his bottle and slams it on the table.

“Harvard.”

*

_saint asgardia preparatory school, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

  
St. Asgardia’s isn’t so much nestled into the corner of an Upper East Side street as it takes over most of the street itself. Manhattan isn’t known for its foliage, but the gorgeous brick and cool grey stone building hosts its own small copse of trees behind a stone archway that reads _Saint Asgardia Preparatory School_. The school spreads itself wide across the Manhattan block, the building behind the stone archway hosting 8th through 12th grade classrooms, administrative rooms, and a small chapel to the right of the archway that students are obligated to attend first thing in the morning and some time after lunch.

There’s a small courtyard in between the entrance to the building and the world beyond that archway, framed by trees and holding small stone tables and benches that were donated by some prestigious alumnus a handful of decades ago. There are bright-eyed and eager freshmen waffling about them, nervously straightening pleated skirts that are at least one finger length past their knees and straightening starched white collars under dark blue blazers.

Sometimes Loki likes to conduct court here, where everyone can see and hear him, if not talk to him. Today he’s left Amora and Barnes in charge of proceedings at their usual table. Barnes really only holds court with them when Rogers is sick or otherwise indisposed, which is with alarming frequency, and Loki only really allows it because it makes him look good to be associating with do-gooders. Anyway, Barnes has been out and nearly decked in rainbows since middle school and he generally doesn’t have any shits to give, despite being one of the most infuriatingly kind people Loki’s ever met, which amuses Loki enough that he keeps him around. Also, sometimes they like to get high in the planetarium and snicker about boys. They call it Space Club. It’s not an unpleasant way to spend a random Thursday afternoon.

Anyway, he digresses.

He nods at Amora and Barnes and the group of terrified freshmen looking up at them eagerly and steps to the right, under a tree and through the smaller archway into the chapel.

The chapel is dark and cool, a contrast to the stifling end of summer humidity lingering outside. Thin morning light streams in through high windows large enough to light the entire place on a sunny day. There are rows of pews, enough for the elite student body to fit in comfortably during school announcements or morning mass.

Loki likes the chapel. There’s an almost otherworldly calmness that seeps out of the dark wood and clean, white tiles. He never comes to seek God, but sometimes he comes to seek a measure of peace and to him, that’s the same thing. There’s a cross and an altar at the front that makes him laugh. He’s definitely sucked someone off behind it before, whoops. Loki reaches one hand forward, covers the altar and cross in his vision and uses his other hand to cover the cross necklace tucked beneath his button up. He does laugh this time and the sound echoes around the chamber.

His designer shoes click against the floor as he walks down the aisle, trailing a finger over wood as he goes.

“Give me your blessings,” he says out loud, to no one in particular. God, maybe, if he believes in such a thing.

 _Give me what I deserve_ , he thinks, quietly.

He reaches the front of the aisle and smiles at this place around him, so steeped with false piety. He’s not the only one who has used this chapel for less than holy purposes. The chapel is where Amora does most of her selling.

Up here, at the front of this holy place, moments before the school year is set to begin, Loki feels as settled as he ever will. The constant thrumming of anger and ambition that beats through his veins stills a little. Here, he has power. Here, he is king.

“Mr. Laufeyson?” a deep voice reverberates through the air behind him.

Loki, still staring again, gives the wooden cross a positively wicked look. Then he brings his hands together and closes his eyes, tilts his head forward.

“Mr. Laufeys—” the voice starts again and stops. “Oh. You’re praying. I’m sorry.”

Loki stays silent for two beats longer. Then he turns around with a gracious smile.

“Headmaster,” he says.

“Starting the school year with a prayer and a blessing,” Tyr says with a smile himself. “You are an outstanding example of what we value most at St. Asgardia’s. I have been thinking.”

Loki tilts his head just so, offers a patient smile. He can see Tyr falling for it, for his careful mask. There’s barely any effort needed.

“Will you help me address them this morning?”

Loki purposefully fingers the cross necklace, slips it out from under his shirt as he does so. The Headmaster sees it and nearly beams.

 _I will own all of you_ , Loki thinks.

“Why it would be my pleasure.”  
  
  
The pews fill quickly once the bell rings, the sharp clicking of shoes sounding against the tiles, the rustle of skirts and jackets accompanying a muted kind of din. The older students talk, but the younger ones watch, all eager, wide eyes and reverential poses.

“Welcome to another year at St. Asgardia’s,” the Headmaster says. He stands in front of the altar, at the front of the chapel.

Next to him stands Loki, cross at his throat, his hands folded neatly in front of him. He looks respectable, pious even.

Tyr begins his usual beginning of the year, holier-than-thou recitation of expectations that students learn two months into their schooling to break in half a dozen ways. Loki looks out at his peers and sees good Catholic boys who could not possibly be gay, but who were quick enough to unzip for him after a meager drink. He knows who has bought from Amora, who has gone to bed with Thor, who has gotten so drunk off of wine coolers that they have spent an entire party with their heads in the toilet.

Yes, St. Asgardia’s, where the pure go to wrap themselves in sin and call it forgiveness.

Loki could spit on all of them and have venom left to spare.

He watches on placidly. Amora sits near the back, in a corner next to some young, tall blond who is looking at her like she’s his holy grail. She’s actually closer to Lucifer than anything holy, but he won’t know that until after she spits him back out. Barnes finds Rogers and they sit in the second row. Rogers is showing him something on his phone and Barnes leans into him, watching him, not the phone, raptly, which is hideously obvious but which Rogers is and may forever be oblivious to. There’s Heimdall sitting to the rightmost side, thick arm braced against the side of the benches, his dreads sliding down his back to his waist, strange golden eyes glowing in the morning light. Loki’s often wondered what it would be like to have his enormous mass take him, but he’s also fairly certain his step brother would kill him. Thor has never explicitly said if he and Heimdall have ever fucked, but Loki does have eyes.

Tyr drones on about morals and ethics and God or some irrelevant concept the students will hear and forget to fear within the quick span of his own breath. The only one who Loki is certain will pay attention belongs to a head of white blond and an infuriatingly kind face sitting, of course, in the front row. Baldur sits straight and sure, mouth earnest, blue blazer tucked neatly around his shoulders. His eyes are a warm blue lake lacking thought and substance. He smiles up at the Headmaster stupidly, reverentially. Loki could break him against the floor.

Sudden movement at the back catches Loki’s eyes. Or rather, the chapel door swings open, scraping lightly against the floor, and a hundred set of eyes swivel to the back. Even Tyr falters in his ill-conceived soliloquy.

Loki hears a familiar gait, the clicking of Tom Ford loafers he saw his step brother buy during a five figure impulsive shopping excursion one day when he was particularly incensed with Odin. Thor wears his blazer over an inordinately expensive white t-shirt that’s tucked into prohibitively expensive jeans that curve to his ass in the most explicit way possible. Again, Loki has eyes. It most certainly is not complying to the dress code, but who’s going to tell Thor that?

His gold hair, lacking the do-gooder combover sported by Rogers or the neat, boring trim of Baldur, falls, lightly tousled, to the top of his shoulders like he had just run his fingers through his hair once that morning and let nature take care of the rest. Loki can almost hear the collective salivation of every boy and girl in the audience alike.

He himself nearly sighs. Thor is forbidden fruit, which makes him more interesting to Loki than he would be otherwise, but he’s also the biggest waste of potential Loki has ever met. He could be more than cheap fucks and fruitless power struggles with Odin, but he’d rather use his dick than his brain. It works for his brother, but does disappoint Loki on some fundamental level.

Thor raises an eyebrow at him from all the way in the back and Loki nearly smirks. He slides into the pews in the back next to his band of spoiled, aimless idiots. Fandral snickers. The rest of the student body watch his every movement, mesmerized by everything that Thor is and could be. Even Baldur stops thirsting after the Headmaster to watch him, which makes Loki think.

“As I was saying,” Tyr finally manages to regain some of the audience he’s lost. “Before we begin this fruitful new year, we have a member of our own student body to lead us in prayer. Mr. Laufeyson?”

Hundreds of pairs of eyes swivel from the Headmaster onto Loki.

For a moment, he nearly preens under the attention. There’s energy thrumming just beneath his skin and, below that, the kind of anger that never finds an end.

“Yes, of course, Headmaster,” Loki says. He uses the voice he saves for authority figures and to twist particularly difficult targets around his narrow fingers. It’s soft, low, controlled. Thor smirks up at him and Loki smiles back at him, and the rest of the student body. “Let us bow our heads and begin the year with His blessings.”

Hundreds of heads follow his instructions, tilt their chins down, close their eyes. Baldur, in the front, listens without question. Loki feels the thrill of power in the pit of his stomach.

He begins a prayer even God would have listened to, if Loki believed in anything other than himself.

*

_penthouse, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

 School is a waste of time for most of the privileged students of St. Asgardia’s, but even among the obscenely wealthy, Thor finds himself particularly put upon. It’s not like Odinson Industries stopped existing just because his dad’s been state senator for the past two decades. His mother used to helm the good ship Odinson and then his Uncle Mimir after her. Mimir is even older than Odin, with a bad back and children littered across most of Europe. It’s a matter of when Thor will take over, not if. The fact that Odin keeps threatening Thor with his inheritance is mostly an empty gesture, but Odin also has a monstrous temper so Thor can never be sure. Plus the whole, like, desire for his father to love him or whatever bullshit Dr. Banner keeps telling him is the Real Problem.

Anyway, Thor lasts the entire fucking day and it’s as pointless as he remembers it being. Odin has chosen his classes for him, some required math and science and English and then business classes he personally couldn’t find a single fuck to give about. Mostly he weathers stares and tries not to think about who’s worshipping him to his face while whispering behind his back. _Did you hear? He got dumped by Jane Foster. How the mighty have fallen._

It makes Thor’s neck itch and by lunch he’s so irate that even the memory of _Loki_ leading the student body in a farce of a prayer isn’t amusing to him anymore. He almost makes three different poor, leggy decisions before Sif tells him to stop glowering and go to class. By the last hour, he’s frustrated, angry, and toothless. He sees four different brunettes he thinks is Jane, but none of them are. When he finally sees his ex, he might snap altogether.

  
He slams the car door behind him and takes the elevator up to the penthouse, frustration making him nearly crawl out of his skin. The elevator door slides open and he tears out of his jacket, dumps it on the floor.

He pours a glass full of whiskey from the bar in the kitchen and tips it back, mouth full, throat burning in a slightly masochistic and mostly satisfying way. He slams the glass back down on the counter and stalks into his room.  
  
It takes him about a half an hour of laying across his enormous bed and looking up at the ceiling, devising fruitless revenge schemes, to calm down. He runs a hand through his hair and sits up, the distinct need to drink himself numb prickling under his skin. He pushes himself out of bed, all pent energy and barely restrained muscle strength.

Thor steps back into the wide, sweeping living room, intent on relieving a whole bottle of whiskey. Instead, he finds himself staring at the delicate curve of shoulders clothed in silk and inky black hair spilling over the top.

His first instinct is to say something. The next is to press his mouth, hot and open, to the skin between Loki’s neck and shoulder.

“A Farbauti original?” Thor asks instead.

After a brief moment, Loki tilts his head back. Amused green eyes watch him and his mouth follows, ticking up slightly at the corners.

“This old thing?” his step brother drawls.

“Pure silk?” Thor watches him back.

“I have very delicate skin,” Loki says. His head tilts forward again and Thor loses his face for the back of his head.

He considers following, but then reconsiders. Instead, he goes to the bar and pours out two glasses of Odin’s favorite brandy.

When he crosses back over to the living room, stepping past the couch, he can see Loki stretched across the chaise. He’s in a light lavender robe, flowers spilling across the front, pure silk, and leaving very little to the imagination. Thor can’t keep himself from skimming his gaze down Loki’s body and Loki, not missing a chance to be undressed by someone’s eyes, smirks.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“My compliments to the designer,” Thor says, throat a little dry and stomach a little tight, hands Loki the glass.

“Only the designer?” Loki looks like he could eat Thor alive, which he likely could. His fingers brush Thor’s as he takes the glass from him.

“Is there someone else I should be complimenting?” Thor says lightly, as though he hasn’t already thought through five different ways to get under that robe.

Loki’s smile widens, a sharp grin he reserves for when he’s particularly amused.

“It depends on what you want,” he says. He leans forward, long fingers curved around his glass. One of his legs bends up and the smooth silk slides to the side, exposing pale, smooth skin underneath.

Thor can’t help but eye it, the stretch of thigh leading into the dark of cloth.

Loki laughs lightly. The sound prickles at Thor’s ears, irritates his frustrations, his pent up energy rising to the surface.

The brandy is on his tongue before he can stop to think, the glass clattering to the coffee table, his feet crossing the space between them.

Loki’s laughter dies in his throat as Thor looms over him, one knee between his legs, one hand on the chaise behind him.

“Yes?” his step brother says, his eyes dark, breath low.

Thor leans closer, his hand sliding off the pillow and onto Loki’s shoulder. He traces the silk, follows the line of it to his throat and then down. Suddenly, Thor grasps the robe and wrests it open.

Loki doesn’t make a noise. He watches Thor closely, hungrily. He smiles.

Under, pressed against white skin is black lace, straps crossing at Loki’s chest, delicate patterns barely covering his nipples. Thor eyes him further down, the lace starting again beneath a trail of black hair, more straps and buckles and more lace at his thighs.

He doesn’t realize he’s growled, but it comes from him, deep in his throat, guttural and possessive. He reaches for Loki, but Loki slaps his hand away.

“Ah uh,” he shakes his head. “You can look, but you can’t touch.”

Thor growls again, but this time out of frustration.

“Use your words,” Loki says. He stretches underneath Thor’s gaze, clearly enjoying the blatant attention, Thor’s inability to contain what it is that he wants.

“Why—” Thor tries, but his voice comes out hoarse. He tries again. “What is that?”

Loki grins.

“Oh, this old thing?” he says. “Do you like it?”

Thor stares.

“I like the feel of lace,” Loki says. “It makes me feel—pretty.”

Thor’s eyes nearly bug out of his head and Loki throws his head back and laughs.

“You are so easy,” Loki says as Thor continues sputtering incoherently. Then, much to Thor’s despair, he closes the gap the robe has left open. Then he reaches up, a palm on Thor’s cheek, and guides him closer down to him.

Thor, brain nearly blacked out, goes down easily. His knee is pressed against Loki’s own, his arm braced against the chaise.

“I need you to do something for me,” Loki says.

Thor, stopped barely a foot from Loki’s mouth, looks at him.

“What?”

“I need you to sleep with Baldur,” he says.

Thor is so distracted by how hard he suddenly realizes he is that it takes him a second to process what Loki’s said.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Loki says. “Baldur. I need you to fuck him.”

Thor leans back an inch.

“Why.”

It’s only now that Loki’s face contorts into something dangerous and ugly.

“Because that holier-than-thou simpleton took something that is mine,” he seethes. “And I will ruin him for it.”

Thor frowns.

“And sleeping with me is going to do that how?”

“Oh you have seen him,” Loki says dismissively. “Good little Catholic boy. Imagine what everyone will say when they realize that he is not only having premarital sex, but that he is taking it in the ass.”

Thor rolls his eyes.

“You fuck him then,” he says. “I have other things to do.”

“Have you _seen_ him look at you?” Loki says with disgust. “As though you are Christ come again.”

That makes Thor snort.

“No, thanks,” he says. Now that Loki is talking and being, well, _Loki_ about everything, Thor can think around his throbbing boner.

“ _Come on_ ,” Loki hisses.

“Do it yourself,” Thor says.

“What could you _possibly_ have to do that requires actual effort on your part?”

Now it’s Thor’s turn to scowl in displeasure.

“Jane,” he says. “I have to deal with her.”

“What about her?” Loki asks, eyes narrowing.

“I need her back,” Thor says.

“She was not boring enough the first time around?” Loki drawls. Absentmindedly, he adjusts his robe.

“Shut up,” Thor says with a glower. “Yes. I need her back so I can dump her.”

Loki looks at Thor like he’s never seen anyone who’s wasted his time more.

“That is _it_?” Loki says. “You are sitting there looking like a simpering idiot because Jane Foster _dumped_ you?”

“You’re having a pissing contest with _Baldur_ ,” Thor says pointedly and Loki scowls. “That kid has less brain cells than Fandral. What did he take from you anyway?”

“ _Enough_ ,” Loki says, all teeth and steaming anger.

Thor sighs, thinking about how this could have gone differently. He’s flagging, which is a waste.

“Any simpleton could make Jane Foster fall in love with them,” Loki says, after a moment. “She is as bland and basic as the stock image she was printed from.”

That rankles Thor.

“You do it then,” he says. “If it’s that easy.”

“What would I do with Jane Foster’s affections?” Loki looks at Thor as though he’s stupid.

“Do it for me,” Thor says.

Loki, bored and irritated and listless, suddenly looks at Thor with attention.

“Excuse me?”

“Get her back for me,” Thor says.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I’m your brother,” Thor says.

“Step brother,” Loki corrects. At his throat is that cross chain he took from Amora. He twists it around his fingers. “That isn’t good enough.”

Thor grunts in irritation and makes to get up, when Loki stops him. He lets go of his chain and rests a single palm on Thor’s stomach, above his belt.

“What if we made a wager?” Loki says. If he had been listless before, his voice is suddenly rich with idea.

Thor eyes him warily. They’ve been brothers for three years and in that time, Thor has known Loki to be nothing but a snake. A snake whose venom has never been used against Thor, but a snake with venom nonetheless.

But let no one say Thor Odinson isn’t intrigued by snakes.

“What kind?” he says.

“Jane and Baldur,” Loki says. Yes, his eyes are glittering now, his breathing come up fast, excited. He leans up, into Thor’s space. “Why don’t we see who is right?” 

Thor can smell expensive soap and cologne on Loki’s skin. He wants to taste his salt on his tongue.

“Tell me,” he says.

Loki grins.

“If I can make Jane take you back, you give me what you treasure most,” Loki says. Thor frowns as Loki’s eyes flicker to his neck, the chain hanging there. He reaches up for Mjolnir unconsciously.

“And what of me?”

“And if you manage to sleep with Baldur, dear _brother_ ,” Loki says and he’s in Thor’s space now, his body pressed against Thor’s, his mouth at his ear. Thor is distinctly aware of the robe flapping open, the lace underneath. “I will give you what you have wanted all along.”

Loki’s hand slides down, lower, until his palm is against the tent in Thor’s pants. He applies the slightest of pressures and Thor’s vision goes spotty, his breathing guttural again.

“Deal,” Thor says.

He turns to face Loki and they’re barely a breath away, Loki smirking, and Thor ready to take what is his.

“I will have you.” It’s Thor in Loki’s ear this time. “In lace. And out of it. _Brother_.”

*

_saint asgardia preparatory school, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Thor wouldn’t say that having a goal motivates him to go to school, but the thought of Loki under his control, begging, does. He even has the maid find his actual button up shirt to wear with his school uniform. It’s the first time in three years he has worn what was assigned to him, but he unbuttons the top three buttons anyway and tousles his hair, lets it hang messily over shoulder. Let Odin never say Thor didn’t know how to exploit the extravagant good looks he had inherited from his mother.

He finds Baldur talking to a group of freshmen by his locker. He’s looking at them kindly, warmly, with enough earnest goodness to break Thor’s teeth on. He resists the urge to roll his eyes, mostly because it’s what Loki would have done.

“Hey,” he says, approaching them.

The girls quiet and look over at Thor immediately. Their eyes go wide. Baldur’s eyes widen, but not so much in awe as in surprise.

“Thor,” Baldur says after a beat. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Thor says. Then he shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe. Can we talk?”

Baldur gives the girls an apologetic look and they walk off, leaning together and whispering, looking back at Thor and Baldur and whispering some more.

“I don’t think you’ve talked to me in two years,” Baldur says with a smile. “Since we were paired up in science in 8th grade.”

Thor has no recollection of the matter, but he nods like he does.

“Life happens,” he says ambiguously.

“Yes, true,” Baldur agrees. He rotates the combination to his lock and opens the locker door.

Thor leans against it.

“I need help,” he says unceremoniously, but with, like, charm.

Baldur rummages in his locker and then looks at Thor curiously.

“What could I offer that Thor Odinson could possibly need help on?” he asks.

“My dad,” Thor says. “He’s uh. Kind of a tough ass.”

Baldur looks up at him curiously, all clear blue eyes and white blond hair carefully combed and neatly trimmed. He kind of looks like a doll someone modeled after a saint, which, Thor guesses is objectively attractive, if he was into that kind of thing.

“He’s a senator,” Baldur says. “I suppose he has to be.”

“Sure,” Thor says, almost immediately annoyed. “Well I’m his fuck up son and I’ve been given an ultimatum. Ivy League or disinheritance.”

Baldur’s eyebrows shoot up.

“That’s extreme.”

“That’s Odin,” Thor says with a snort. He’s leaning against Baldur’s locker, his jacket open and getting rumpled.

Baldur’s eyes flicker down for a heartbeat that Thor doesn’t miss. Interesting.

“So how can I help you?” Baldur asks with a smile.

“You’re going to Yale,” Thor says.

“That’s not official,” Baldur says in the manner of someone who knows it’s true, but is trying not to lord it over someone else. Thor nearly rolls his eyes.

“We both know it is,” Thor says. He gives Baldur a smile two seconds too late, forgetting for a moment he’s supposed to be seducing this vanilla wafer. “The entire student body knows. It’s not surprising. It’s well-deserved.”

Baldur at least has enough personality to look pleased by that comment. 

“I think you’d get in even without the Headmaster’s recommendation,” Thor says. He leans in closer and Baldur swallows carefully, his Adam’s apple bobbing up once and down after. “Help me.”

“You want me to help you with your application?” Baldur asks.

“Help me get into Harvard,” Thor says. “My scores aren’t that bad, but I can get them better. Grades are fine. It’s not an impossible task.”

Baldur thinks this over. He takes out an Advanced Calculus textbook from his locker, puts away his backpack, and closes the door.

Thor moves to the side. He’s rumpled and close to pleading. He knows it’s a good look on him.

“You really want to go to Harvard?” Baldur asks. “For yourself, not for Odin.”

“Yeah,” Thor says with a wide, shining smile. “I really do. I can do it, I know I can be good there. I just need a little help getting in.”

Thor can see when Baldur gives in. His shoulders relax a little and he holds his textbooks closer to his chest.

“All right,” Baldur says. “Yeah, I can help you.”

“Great!” Thor says enthusiastically and claps Baldur on the shoulder. Now Baldur’s not small, but Thor puts in just a bit more force than necessary and he can see Baldur feel it in his body. “You’re a lifesaver, Baldur. I won’t take up too much of your time. Just be in and out.”

The other boy colors slightly pink.

“It’s no problem,” he mutters. “I don’t mind.”

“Give me your number?” Thor asks. “Or no, here.”

He plucks Baldur’s phone from the front pocket of his blazer, where it’s clearly sticking out.

“What’s the code?”

“51454,” Baldur says. He watches Thor put the numbers in and then his phone number. “My mom’s birthday.”

Thor nearly sighs. How could this really be Loki’s rival? Was his step brother losing his mind?

“That’s nice,” he says. “Okay I called my phone so I have it. I’ll text you after school?”

Baldur nods and Thor puts the phone back in his breast pocket.

“Thanks, Baldur,” Thor says. “Really.”

“Anytime,” Baldur says. He smiles at Thor and turns away to head toward whatever class he’s undoubtedly going to show up early for.

Thor lets out his breath once he sees Baldur turn a corner.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Loki,” Thor mutters, evidently too loud because a group of freshmen shoot him scandalized looks.

He turns on his heels and sees Fandral at his locker.

“You,” Thor says.

“Me?” his best friend blinks at him.

“We’re getting drunk.”

“It’s 9 am,” Fandral says, continuing to blink at him. He’s probably still high from the night before.

“We’ll mix in some juice,” Thor says.

Fandral looks at his locker and shrugs.

“I don’t remember what my classes are anyway,” he says and lets Thor drag him away.

  
Loki goes through the day much like he does any other day. He goes to class. He barely pays attention, but he participates anyway, answering every question precisely and correctly. He stays after class to speak with the teacher. He finds Amora and the two of them hold court in the courtyard. He goes to the chapel and pretends to pray when everyone is watching.

At the end of the day, he’s exhausted from his carefully placed mask. He unscrews the top of his cross in the bathroom and takes a cap full of white powder. He snorts it with a little sniffle at the end. He wipes the tip of his nose, screws the cap back on, and takes a deep breath.

The cocaine buzzes in his blood, clears his head.

He finds her at the large bulletin board in the main hallway. She’s smaller than he remembers, to the extent that he’s ever looked at her for more than five seconds without forgetting what she looks like after the first two. He knows Jane Foster is a borderline genius, but with that knowledge and her $10 bargain haircut, she’s a genius who looks like a cheap dormouse.

“Is there anything interesting?” Loki says aloud quietly. He stands next to her, a good half a foot taller, looking over the flyers and announcements.

There was a schedule of the week’s special prayers, flyers for events at school, flyers for events outside of school, someone named Barton looking for others to start a band with, a Wellness poster with numbers for hotlines and a class schedule for yoga, and a calendar that lists clubs and societies that have already set meeting dates for the month 

Jane is standing in front of a section of the board that’s plastered with potential volunteer opportunities. She looks at Loki and hides any surprise she might feel under a careful veneer of slight disinterest.

“Not really,” she says. “The usual suspects.”

“Soup kitchens and homeless shelters?” Loki asks.

“Yeah,” Jane replies. Her eyes flicker from the flyers back to Loki and she can’t quite hide her surprise.

“I like to check once a week,” Loki explains. “Sometimes it’s a place I haven’t worked at before or it’s a cause I hadn’t heard about.”

“Do you have a usual place?” Jane asks.

“Men’s shelters,” Loki says. “There’s one a ten minute walk away from Rockefeller that has an overworked, but kind staff. I’ve been going for the past two years. Some of the residents know me by sight and name.”

Jane pauses, clearly processing that information.

“Loki,” Loki says, offering his hand.

“I know who you are, Loki,” Jane says. “I’ve seen you around the penthouse.”

“Ah, of course,” Loki says. “My step brother has never introduced us, so I wasn’t sure.”

“Did he send you?” Jane asks, eyebrow raised.

“We aren’t that close,” Loki says with a half smile. “I’m just looking for something new.”

Jane does still look suspicious at that, but ultimately lets her guard down. She leans forward and picks up a small flyer. 

“Book drive,” she says. “Could be fun. For incarcerated populations. Do you have an ethical problem with that?”

“My father went to prison for defrauding hundreds of investors,” Loki says with a thin smile. “He was also not, ah, particularly kind to my mother. Far be it for me to want anything nice for criminals, but I suppose even the degenerate deserve reading materials.”

Jane laughs at that.

“Sounds like a perfect fit,” she says.

“What about you?” Loki asks. “MIT isn’t going to accept you by itself.”

Jane smiles.

“I would never volunteer just for my resumé,” she says. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh of course. We volunteer because of the empathy,” Loki says. “The good of the world and the like.”

“Quite so,” Jane says, smiling again.

Loki looks at the board once more, but it’s early enough in the school year that it’s only soup kitchens, children’s reading groups, and recycling club. He sighs and then turns to Jane.

“So, book drive?” he says. “Shall we?” 

Jane pretends to consider it, then nods.

“I think so,” she says. “For the good of the world and such.”

Loki grins at her and hides his teeth while doing so.

Loki parts with Jane’s number in his phone and a promise to let her know what books he’s planning on donating and what shifts he thinks he can take. It’s almost more than he can bear, how easily he can manipulate people meaning to do good. The problem with altruism is that it blinds people to wolves in sheep’s skin. Well, it’s a problem for them. It works out splendidly for Loki.

He looks at his watch, some black Rolex Odin had given him for his last birthday in some lukewarm attempt to appease Farbauti, whose love for her only son runs rather thin, but runs all the same. He has ten minutes until his appointment with the career counselor, so he texts Amora where to meet him after and takes a seat outside of the office.

He’s bored, scrolling through the fake Twitter account he uses to spy on his classmates and troll Odin’s own Twitter account and eavesdropping on the receptionist’s phone calls—apparently Freya needs urgently to withdraw from some class, interesting, and Cage has already gotten into a fight with Rumlow in the eating area, probably well-deserved, typical, and less interesting—when Rogers comes out of the office.

Loki has nothing against Rogers, really. He’s too poor to be of interest, but just enough of a bleeding hearted asshole to amuse Loki. He’s Barnes’s best friend, which makes him untouchable for Loki’s purpose of continuing to benefit from their rather useful friendship.

Rogers is small and blond and has skin so fair all of the old queer poets would kill themselves just to write a line about it. It means he can’t hide shit, even if he could control his big mouth.

Loki sees the flush around Rogers’s neck and at the tip of his ears and raises one dark eyebrow at him.

“Apparently colleges frown upon starting fights or something,” he mutters at Loki.

Loki snorts. The two constants in life, death and Steve Rogers trying to fight someone three times his size for his principles.

“Perhaps you can offer to join a boxing team,” Loki suggests cheerfully.

Rogers looks down at his scrawny body and back up at Loki, deadpan expression.

“Maybe I can apply to be captain of the football squad while I’m at it,” Rogers says.

“There’s your angle,” Loki says. “You’re too queer to know sports terminology. Colleges love diversity.”

“Oh yeah,” Rogers snorts. “Just affirmative action me, a white man who needs a leg up in this world.”

“Height diversity counts too,” Loki says with a smile and Rogers flips him off.

“Good luck,” he says with a sigh, lifting his pack onto his shoulder. “He’s in a Mood.”

Loki gets up and carefully straightens his blazer. He won’t need the luck. He’s Loki Laufeyson, stepson to Odin Borsson. Only a fool would test his ire.

  
Phil Coulson is a fool, evidently.

Loki sits down across from him and exchanges pleasantries with the counselor, who he’s always found to be a benign idiot. Coulson pulls out Loki’s file and looks through it, being complimentary, fawning, as all teachers do when they see his spotless record. He has perfect grades, an impressive number of extracurricular activities, awards he’s received from the school, national awards for writing, and a minimum of 100 volunteer hours per school year. He knows he has glowing recommendations and when he took the PSATs the year before, he had scored a near perfect score. All he now needs is Yale.

“Your record is impressive, Mr. Laufeyson,” Coulson says. “More than impressive. Pristine.”

“Thank you,” Loki says, not a little smugly.

“I understand you’re expecting letters of recommendation from Ull and Idun?”

“Yes,” Loki says. “And Ms. May, if needed.”

“Good,” Coulson says. “Very good. If I can be honest with you, Mr. Laufeyson—?”

“Please,” Loki says, graciously.

“You can get into any school in the country with this portfolio,” Coulson says.

Loki smiles.

“Except for the one you have listed,” Coulson finishes.

Loki, smiling, freezes.

“Excuse me?”

“You only have listed Yale,” Coulson says, reviewing his file. “Yale is spoken for, unfortunately. But there are other schools you should consider. Have you thought of Princeton? Brown? Columbia. Stanford, for a bit of sunshine.”

Loki doesn’t miss the way that Coulson doesn’t even mention Harvard.

“I am going to Yale,” Loki says. His voice suddenly dips low, nearly acidic.

“As I mentioned, it is spoken for. St. Asgardia’s sends only one student to Yale each year and that student has been selected.”

Loki’s vision goes red. He sees in his mind white blond hair, vacant blue eyes, a stupid, vapid smile, for a brainless half-wit who could not string together a sentence if his life depended on it.

“ _Are you serious?_ ” Loki hisses.

“The other schools I mentioned are perfectly respectable,” Coulson says. “Ivy League even. And if you want to talk about Harvard, we can have that conversation.”

“ _I don’t want to go to Harvard_ ,” Loki spits out. “ _I am going to Yale._ ”

Coulson looks at Loki with a mixture of revulsion and—well, pity. It makes Loki’s blood boil.

“Think about it,” Coulson says, almost placidly. “There are other schools out there, just as great. Perhaps one of those will even suit you better. I’ll send you pamphlets.”

Loki almost tells Coulson where he can shove his pamphlets, but he manages to stop himself from ripping the simpering idiot into pieces. Instead, he stands up slowly, coolly.

“I do not need any pamphlets,” he says, voice hard and cold. “I will be going to Yale. See if I do not.”

  
Amora has no real sense of boundary, so Loki isn’t surprised when she comes into the men’s bathroom. He’s doubled over the sink, fingers digging into the stone basin, stark white from how tightly he’s gripping it. He’s taking in shallow, angry breaths. He’s shaking. He’s absolutely livid.

He turns to her.

“Have you ever heard of _crazy eyes_?” Amora asks with a little smirk.

“Shut up,” Loki snaps.

“Is it that time of the month?” she asks. “You’re always so moody when you’re on your period.”

“ _Shut. Up_ ,” Loki growls.

Amora raises an eyebrow, but she doesn’t open her mouth again, so thank Lucifer for small miracles.

Loki unscrews the cross necklace and takes a heaping capful of white powder.

“I miss my necklace,” Amora says with a sigh.

Loki ignores her, just inhales the cocaine. He waits for the jolt and it doesn’t come too long after. His blood buzzes, his eyes bug out of his head.

“I want some,” Amora says.

“You’re a drug dealer,” Loki says after a moment of closing his eyes and feeling his heartbeat pick up. “Supply your own, to yourself.”

“Oh, are we capable of sentences now?” Amora asks. She unclasps her purse and rummages for her supplies.

“Close the door, idiot,” Loki snaps.

“You’re so annoying,” Amora mutters and goes to lock it. Then she returns and starts setting up lines on the counter.

St. Asgardia’s is very well maintained, but snorting coke off of the counter of a high school boy’s bathroom is both unbearably cliché and disgusting.

“What happened to you?” Amora asks as she bends down.

Loki’s buzz wears off the tiniest amount at that. He clenches his fists, heart racing, head pounding.

“Our brain-dead guidance counselor thought to tell me what to do,” he says.

“We have a guidance counselor?” Amora asks as she resurfaces. She takes a few nose clearing sniffles and brushes the tip of her nose. “Some more?”

Loki looks at the bathroom counter.

“No,” he says.

Amora shrugs and bends down again.

“And? What did he do?”

“He told me I could not have what I wanted,” Loki sneers. “As though he could stop me.”

Amora finishes and sniffles again. Her eyes are a little brighter than before, her cheeks a bit flushed. She looks at him questioningly.

“Baldur,” Loki grunts, name like a curse.

“Ah,” Amora says. “Your lover.”

Loki growls.

“Boys are so boring,” Amora sighs. She cleans up her things and straightens her jacket and skirt. “So, what are we doing about this personal attack on you?”

“I’m taking care of Baldur,” Loki says and makes a mental note to find Thor in his bedroom tonight. “As for Coulson…”

*

_fandral’s family brownstone, upper west side, manhattan_

Thor practically grew up in Fandral’s brownstone. He remembers being a kid, running across the smooth wooden floors, climbing up stairs and sliding down railings that were too narrow for anyone over the age of three. Fandral’s father had been CEO of some tech company that had survived the tech bubble implosion and been consequently bought out by Odinson Industries. Thor doesn’t have a first memory with Fandral, the blond had appeared by his side one day and they hadn’t gotten sick of each other yet.

In terms of loyalty, there was no one more willing to hide a human body for you than Fandral. Or destroy another boy’s life for a bet.

“What do you get out of this again?” Fandral asks, squinting at Thor.

Thor’s sprawled across the enormous leather couch in his enormous room. Fandral, ever the contrarian, is spread on the ground, eagle-splayed. Every once in a while he pushes himself up on one elbow and takes a hit from the bong.

The bong is in the space in between them, both of them momentarily too stoned to really reach for it. Fandral’s eyes narrow at Thor from where he’s lying, his blond hair flopping into his eyes.

“Glory,” Thor says.

He licks his lips and stares at the interesting colors of the ceiling.

“Seems like a lot of—work, for glory,” Fandral says with a large yawn. “Ruining someone and all.”

“I’m not ruining him,” Thor says. “I’m fucking him.”

“Is he open to that?” Fandral asks.

“According to Loki,” Thor shrugs. He stretches his hands up above him.

“I guess most people want to fuck you,” Fandral replies amiably.

“Dude,” Thor says and stares at him.

“Pass,” Fandral says and Thor grunts in approval. The thought of fucking Fandral is really killing his buzz.

“So the question,” Thor says. “Is how.”

“You don’t usually need a plan,” Fandral hums from the ground.

Usually Thor isn’t only fucking someone in order to fuck someone else—well. Usually the first someone is someone he wants to fuck anyway.

Baldur is fine in a creepy action figure kind of way, but he excites Thor as much as college applications.

“He’s—going to help me,” Thor laughs. “With _college_ essays.”

“What?” Fandral pushes himself up on an elbow and stares at Thor. “That’s—I think I saw that. On an episode of.”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, just looks confused, and then falls back, giggling.

“Dude,” Thor say. “You’re so fucking stoned.”

“Yeah,” Fandral says dreamily. “Should I fuck Barnes?”

“Yeah,” Thor snorts. “If you want Rogers to kill you. Focus. This is about _me_.”

“Okay, Loki,” Fandral snickers.

Thor’s stomach clenches, hunger pooling in the pit there. Ever since their bet, Thor’s imagined all of the ways he would take his insufferable and stupidly beautiful step brother. He’s gone to sleep most nights with his hand on himself and Loki’s face in his mind.

Good thing he lost his sense of shame sometime around the time Odin became a dick to him.

“Gonna seduce him while we’re studying,” Thor says out loud. “I’ll touch his neck. Wear my Sunday best.”

“Is that what you call being naked?” And Fandral laughs so hard at his own stupid joke that he rolls onto his side.

“He has to earn that,” Thor says. “And then—”

“Show him what he’s missing,” Fandral suggests. “What he could have.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, you dick?”

“Figure out a way to show him your body,” Fandral sighs. “Also, he seems like a dweeb, so compliment him and shit. Tell him you like the way he….explains his answers in class.”

It’s so fucking stupid that Fandral laughs himself onto his other side too.

Thor groans.

“You couldn’t have picked anyone else?” he mutters aloud to Loki, as though he’s there, and presses his palms against his bloodshot eyes.

Fandral shrugs on the ground.

“Compliment him, make him think you’re a fucking nerd. Bat your eyes and shit. Then take off your shirt.”

It’s not the worst idea Fandral has ever had, although that’s not exactly an outstanding metric. Some of his other ideas have included eating 5 pounds of chicken wings in one sitting, taking shots of ghost pepper sauce, trying to sent Volstagg in to take a test for him, and trying to convince the group they should go skydiving _while_ drunk.

Fandral is a stupid son of a bitch, but also, like, the best friend Thor’s ever had. Also, sometimes his ideas aren’t completely idiotic.

“You trying to fuck me again?” Thor squints at him.

Fandral snorts and reaches for the bong.

“Nice try,” he says. “I like them tall and nerdy. Brown hair. Clean cut. Heart of gold…”

“Dude,” Thor says. “Rogers _will_ kill you, he’s small but lethal.”

“I’m not saying no to a threesome,” Fandral smirks and takes a hit.

Thor rolls his eyes and ignores him.

  
Studying and taking off his shirt. He can do that. Thor’s not good at pretending something isn’t boring him, but he is good at letting his dick take over where his brain fails. And if he can get into Harvard in the meantime, well that’d be a great giant Fuck You to the old man too.

He takes out his phone and pulls up Baldur’s number. He knows he sounds fried as hell right now, so he texts him. _Hey, it’s Thor. How about tonight?_

*

_penthouse, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

_Actually, I did know him. He used to volunteer at the shelter with me once a month until he fell ill. We were all devastated to hear._

Loki sits on the couch, glass of wine on the table, legs crossed at the ankles. He isn’t wearing his robe this time, but he is considering it. He has been so tense and tight all day that his skin itches. He thinks about sinking into an exfoliating bath, scrubbing his skin smooth. He sighs and sets that thought aside, to be examined when he’s finished with his tasks.

He’s been texting Jane for the past hour. After he compartmentalized all of the ways in which he would be ruining Coulson, he had refocused on his original goal. Loki is very good at running multiple schemes at once, but sometimes a thorn appears in his side and this time that thorn went by the name of Jane Foster.

Loki has no idea how his step brother had managed to get her in bed in the first place. Over the course of this particular challenge, he has researched Jane Foster, found every shred of information about her that there is to find, and asked Amora to casually stalk her besides. By the looks of it, she really is as straight-edged as she appears. Book smart, a science prodigy, numerous extracurriculars, a stable family unit, middle-class background, strong work ethic, and no disciplinary record. She is applying to MIT and will undoubtedly get in Early Decision because she keeps winning science papers and competitions. If Jane Foster were any more Good Genius American Girl, Loki would blow his brains out.

In his opinion, Jane likely deserves better than his fuck up of a step brother, but who is he to judge which white-bread vanilla wafer Thor wants to fuck in his free time?

Loki himself has more important people to ruin.

 

 _I have three copies of The Great Gatsby_ , Jane texts him back. _I should donate one of them, probably. But I have each carefully annotated_.

Loki looks at his phone in disgust. Only a neanderthal would _write_ in a book. Maybe Jane Foster _is_ meant for Thor.

 _Think of some poor, lonely criminal being aided by your thoughts about Daisy Buchanan_ , Loki texts back. He tries not to roll his eyes, because he would likely strain the muscles at this point.

 _Now I want to start a book club with them_ , Jane writes back. _See what they think._

They’re criminals, Loki wants to reply. Thinking is not high on their list of priorities.

 _You’re still against me donating a stack of copies of Crime and Punishment?_ Loki writes her back.

 _You just want to send the entire prison population into an existential crisis!_ Jane texts after a minute.

 _Blame Dostoevsky, not me_ , Loki replies.

Jane likely replies back, but Loki hears the elevator bell ding lightly and the doors slide open. He pockets the phone. This entire scheme is taking too much time and personal connection for his liking, but he supposes it will hurt all the sweeter when his stupid step brother does--well, whatever it is that he wants to do to her.

Speaking of his stupid step brother.

Loki can hear the heavy fall of Thor’s shoes against the tile. He has his step brother’s gait memorized, could recognize it half asleep.

“Brother dearest,” Loki says.

“You’re loose with that word these days,” Thor says, raising an eyebrow. He has his suit jacket on, a light blue button up shirt unbuttoned at his throat.

“I am trying it out,” he says with a smile. “Do you like it?”

“You hate it,” Thor says, by way of deflection. “You don’t like being bound to anyone.”

“That is dramatic,” Loki says. “I like being accurate. You are not my brother, we share only a stepfather. And even that, who knows for how long?”

“Step brother still has the word brother in it,” Thor replies.

“If you wish to explain to your therapist why you made a sex bet with your step _brother_ , feel free to do so,” Loki says with a laugh.

Thor rolls his eyes. He slings his blazer over a chair and comes and sits down next to Loki. He reaches for the glass of wine immediately.

“Excuse you,” Loki’s eyes narrow.

“It’s going to take you half the day to finish this anyway,” Thor says. He tips back the goblet and takes three large gulps.

 _Neanderthal_.

“It is called _enjoying_ what I put in my body,” Loki says. Thor raises an eyebrow again and Loki smirks in return.

“It sucks,” Thor says. “Wine sucks.”

“Then do feel free to stop drinking mine,” Loki snaps.

That makes the other boy smile. He hands the wine glass back over.

“So,” Loki says, appeased. “Has Baldur surrendered his virginity to you?”

“Is Jane in love with me again?” Thor raises an eyebrow.

“You said nothing about love,” Loki says, taking a sip. “I am earning her trust. All successful schemes require patience.”

Thor snorts.

“So I should expect her back in my arms in what—one year? Two?”

“I don’t know,” Loki says drily. “Why don’t we see how she feels about your brotherly desires? Surely that will help speed things along.”

Thor gives Loki a dark look.

“I’m meeting Baldur in an hour,” he says.

That makes Loki’s heart pick up, that familiar anger thrumming against his veins. He takes in a breath to clear it.

“Oh?” he takes another mouthful of wine.

“You’re not the only person who can scheme,” Thor says.

“That is certainly news to me,” Loki says. He licks his lips, stained purple from the wine. Thor watches the movement.

“You don’t have ownership over ambition,” Thor leans back into the couch.

“Have you told Odin?” Loki laughs, a bit devilish and a lot amused. “He will be delighted to hear.”

“His exact words weren’t exactly don’t fuck for profit,” Thor says, with a slight smirk, “but I’m sure it was implied between the you’re a disgrace to the family and I’m just waiting for when it’s politically convenient to disown you.”

“Hm,” Loki says and stretches his legs out on the couch. His toes brush Thor’s thigh. “Would I get your share of the family fortune? If you were disinherited.”

“And my share of the family expectations,” Thor says lowly. “Enjoy that.”

“I will take that under consideration,” Loki smiles and presses his toes against Thor. His step brother watches him and doesn’t stop him.  “And what is this great scheme?”

“Why, do you want to participate?” Thor smirks.

His thigh, clad in soft, expensive slacks, warms Loki’s feet.

“I am sure you would like that,” Loki tips back the glass, the Cabernet Sauvignon hitting the back of his throat and sliding down smoothly.

“When I win,” Thor says. His eyes are still tracing Loki’s lips, move slowly down his throat. 

A thrill runs through Loki’s stomach despite himself. He’s never considered himself a voyeur, but he thinks about it for a moment, Thor’s eyes on him, dark with need, hands bound behind him, as Loki touches himself. It’s not an unpleasant thought. It spikes the heat in Loki’s blood.

He swallows the taste in his mouth, his eyes flickering carefully up Thor’s own throat.

Thor gets up with a too-pleased look on his face. Loki’s feet hit the cool air immediately. That will not do.

“I will look good with your mother’s necklace at my neck,” he says.

That makes Thor’s expression flicker, as intended. His hand goes to his chest, the hammer laying against his breastbone, under his shirt. He stands there for a moment, as though adrift. Perhaps he is remembering his mother, or perhaps he is imagining Loki standing there, in nothing but his mother’s chain about his throat.

Loki isn’t sure if it is pleasant or repulsive for him. Thor’s expression is rarely unreadable, but it is now, like thunderclouds against an overcast sky. He doesn’t sway, but he seems like he should be.

The expression clears after a moment.

“I have to go,” he says. “Baldur is waiting.”

For some reason that makes Loki pause. He opens his mouth to say something and finds his words have left him. He closes it, something unsettling in his chest, an indescribable, uncomfortable thing.

Thor turns and Loki watches him stride across the living room toward the hall leading to his bedroom. His hair, loose about his shoulders, catch stray beams of light streaming in through the high windows. It glints, like gold.

Loki runs his tongue across his lips again and leans back into the couch, with a little _huh_.

He takes his phone out of his pocket.

_How about tomorrow, after school? We can sort through the donations._

There’s the little [ . . . ] and then Jane’s reply appears.

_Perfect._

*

_baldur’s high-rise, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Thor slings an unspeakably expensive leather backpack over one shoulder. He’s stuffed his laptop inside and some textbooks, in case Baldur is actually boring enough to want to do work. He fixes his hair, puts it up into a quick and lazy bun. He’s changed into a pair of jeans and shirt that stretches exactly as he likes it across a chest he’s earned.

He has the driver take him the ten blocks and three avenues separating their penthouse from the high-rise that Baldur’s grandfather had built in the early 90s and made an absolute killing off of. Thor forgets what Baldur’s family does, mostly because he doesn’t care, but he’s pretty sure it’s in property.

He texts Fandral and Sif the entire way, Fandral about the first phase in their plan and Sif about how he had tried to look at Harvard’s admission requirements and immediately blacked out in a kind of disgusted rage.  

The driver drops him off at the curb and he walks through the lobby and past the door man with all of the ingrained entitlement and power of a wealthy, attractive white boy who’s never faced a consequence in his life. Which, to be clear, he hasn’t.

He presses the button to take him up to Baldur’s own penthouse, which is nowhere near as nice as Odin’s own, but has its own charm in a straddling new money kind of way.

Baldur opens the door after Thor texts him and he—huh. When he’s at school, he’s all buttoned up, pristine good Catholic boy barely hiding what is objectively a pretty massive body for a high school student. Thor would know, he has the only one that’s more jacked. But Baldur wears black sweatpants and a dark grey NASA sweatshirt that only makes him look slightly like the fucking nerd he is.

“Hey,” Baldur says and his face dimples with smile.

Thor raises an eyebrow.

“Sure you don’t need to wear a tie with that?” He asks and Baldur laughs.

“Yeah I guess no one usually sees me on the weekends,” he says. He stands to the side and Thor follows him into the apartment.

“I didn’t know you owned anything that wasn’t a button up,” Thor admits.  

“I’m wearing one underneath, don’t worry,” Baldur says and it takes Thor just a second to realize he’s made a joke.

There’s an awkward pause and then Thor gives him a smile.

“Thanks for your help,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times my eyes have glazed over trying to read the admissions requirements. Why didn’t anyone tell me I needed to cure Cancer before I got to high school?”

Baldur laughs and leads Thor through a long hallway to a wide, spacious room. The floor is wood paneling and there’s large windows, but nothing near the majesty of Odin’s floor to ceiling windows. The decor is proper and clearly expensive vintage, which is fine except it doesn’t hold a flame to Loki’s modern interior decorating. Odin has no time for interior decorating and Farbauti, of course, couldn’t care less, so two years ago Loki had taken one spring to completely redesign the loft. The result had been, like everything Loki touches, extravagant and dramatic and yet perfectly elegant.

Baldur’s loft is fine, but it’s lacking in some quality Thor can’t put his finger on.

“Make yourself at home,” he says and gestures at the sitting area comprised of two large, leather couches and an antique coffee table on a Turkish rug. “Can I get you anything?”

Thor almost asks for a beer before he catches himself.

“A...Coke?” he says questioningly.

“Can do,” Baldur smiles and heads to the kitchen.

Thor actually does use the time to pull out his laptop and open the Harvard admissions website.

He’s reading through it with an aggravated scowl when Baldur appears with two glass bottles of Coke and a bowl of Cool Ranch Doritos.

“Great,” he says brightly, looking at Thor’s screen. “Let’s get started.”

They read through the Harvard admissions requirements together, Baldur taking it apart piece by piece and making some kind of a bullet list that he expects Thor to care about or something. They decide that Thor has to ace his classes this semester, secure at least two stellar letters of recommendation, write a killer personal statement, and spend the next few months studying for the SATs. No pressure. Thor thinks more than once about having Loki forge Odin’s signature or imitate his voice to some admissions officers, although he keeps those plans close to his chest.

Baldur leans over his shoulder, looking at guidelines and whatever organizational document that Thor is attempting to make to appease his weird OCD.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “That’s not—have you never used Word?”

“I don’t believe in computers but even I know that Word sucks,” Thor grumbles.

“What do you mean you don’t believe in computers?” Baldur says with a frown. He reaches forward to fix something and Thor swats his hand away. “Those bullet points aren’t aligned right.”

“Is it going to make me forget the 300 goats I have to sacrifice to get into Harvard?” Thor says. “Computers are whatever.”

“That’s not a real opinion,” Baldur says. He sighs in exasperation as Thor apparently misaligned something else. “ _Thor._ ”

“You do it then!” Thor gives up and shoves the laptop at Baldur.

“Thank God,” Baldur says with relief and takes the laptop from Thor.

“Did you just take the Lord’s name in vain?” Thor asks and Baldur just rolls his eyes as he eagerly leans forward to fix the document like the nerd he is.

“You think I don’t know what people think of me?” Baldur says.

Thor looks innocent, but moves an inch closer to him.

“That I’m a good Catholic boy,” Baldur says. “Boring. Virginal. A narc.”

“Are you not?” Thor asks and then quickly adds, “A good Catholic boy?”

Baldur pauses, mid-correction.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he says. “People always say it like it’s something to be ashamed of. I’m not making anyone else go to mass or judging them if they do—whatever they want to do.”

Despite everything, Thor finds himself intrigued.

“Okay,” he says. “So you are.”

“I mean what does that even mean?” Baldur says with frustration. “That I don’t sleep around? That I volunteer and do my homework?”

“People don’t like feeling bad about themselves,” Thor shrugs. He can’t relate.

“How am I doing that?” Baldur demands. He turns his face away from the laptop and toward Thor. His cheeks are a bit flushed, his eyes bright. “People can do _whatever_ they want, I’m not stopping them.”

“I think you misunderstand people,” Thor says. “They want to do whatever they want and they want to make sure everyone else is doing that too. As long as whatever everyone else is doing isn’t what they’re not doing.”

“That makes no sense!” Baldur exhales, seemingly frustrated. His white blond hair flops into his eyes and for a minute, he almost seems normal, a person come back down to Earth.

“It’s high school, Baldur,” Thor shrugs. “Nothing makes sense.”

“You don’t seem to have any trouble,” Baldur says, watching Thor.

Thor gives him a tight smile.

“Would I need someone to help me with college admissions otherwise?”

“That’s different,” Baldur says. “That’s needing help toward a goal. But everyone likes you and respects you. I like you and respect you!”

Thor raises an eyebrow and Baldur flushes.

“You know people like you, Baldur,” he says. “So what part is bugging you?”

Baldur is quiet a moment.

“The other part. I’m not some...vanilla Catholic boy.” And then, quieter, “Well, I don’t want to be.”

Thor couldn’t have a better opportunity. He leans toward him slightly.

“What do you want?”

Baldur isn’t subtle in the way his eyes flicker to Thor’s mouth.

Thor almost smiles.

“A break,” Baldur says.

“Let’s take a break then,” Thor replies.

  
Baldur tries to protest, because they haven’t written anything yet, but Thor says he has a better idea, and who has ever stopped Thor from doing what he wants?

Baldur follows him out of the apartment, Thor’s fingers circled around his wrist. Thor knows where he’s taking them, and it only takes Baldur a surprised breath to react when Thor opens the door to the pool. The pool is adjacent to the apartment, down the hall and up a flight of stairs. It’s an enclosed room surrounded by windows to look out over the city.

Thor saw it on his way to the apartment.

“I didn’t bring my trunks,” Baldur says uncertainly and Thor just grins.

He tugs at his shirt, pulls it over his head.

“We all have a built in bathing suit,” Thor replies.

Baldur doesn’t flush quickly this time, but it is a slow pink that creeps up his neck. Thor almost laughs, but manages to channel it into a disarming smile.

“You’re wearing underwear right?” Thor asks innocently. “Although it doesn’t bother me if you’re not. Jump in with me.”

Baldur looks like someone set his face on fire.

“Shut up,” he mumbles and Thor grins.

Baldur watches him closely as he slowly shoves his sweatshirt up and over his head. He’s wearing an undershirt.

This time Thor _does_ laugh.

“ _Seriously_?”

“Shut! Up!” Baldur’s voice goes higher and he shoves his undershirt up and over too. He’s left in nothing but his sweatpants, his surprisingly well built chest pale and glittering from light reflected off the water in the pool.

Thor raises an eyebrow and Baldur sighs.

“I can study and work out too, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“No judgement here,” Thor says. He toes off his shoes and moves closer to Baldur. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Baldur crosses his arms at his chest, clearly uncomfortable.

“I’m not ashamed.”

“You’re hiding yourself,” Thor says.

Without Baldur realizing it, Thor’s moved closer, his entire body a half foot from Baldur’s own. Baldur is tall, but Thor is taller. They’re the only two who can see one another eye to eye. Even so, Baldur has to lift his chin an infinitesimal amount.

“From what?” Baldur says lowly.

“You tell me.”

Maybe Baldur doesn’t know what to say, or maybe he knows exactly what he wants to say, but doesn’t know if he can.

Their breathing comes out soft, almost in tandem. The air mingles in between.

Baldur seems to sway and Thor can almost see his longing, an uncertain and tangible thing.

Thor puts a hand on Baldur’s shoulder.

Baldur almost buckles under the weight of the tension between them.

Thor smiles, leans closer.

And then he pushes him into the water.

*

_new york public library, upper east side branch, manhattan, new york_

Loki’s guilty pleasure, if it can be deemed such, is books. It is no great shame to him that he reads, but it does rather challenge the reputation of intimidation he seeks to build, that when he isn’t scheming on how to ruin lives, he is nearly always reading. He’s visited most branches of the New York Public library, because although he’s a staunch capitalist, there is something about the socialism of books that warms whatever dead cockles remain in his long dead heart.

It seems a bit stupid to him that they would have a book drive for incarcerated individuals at a _library_ where people go to _borrow_ books, but he supposes St. Asgardia’s is hardly known for its ingenuity.

He tells Jane this and, surprisingly, she snorts.

“Between you and me, I had the same thought,” she says. They’re out front with boxes and tables, sorting through books that people have donated—mostly the two of them—and arranging books on the tables in a way that makes people think they’re having a book sale, which is both pointless and counterproductive.

“Presumably they have been marketing within the library, or the only books they will have to give the prisoners is The Great Gatsby, Crime and Punishment, and twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul that Fandral donated,” Loki says.

That makes Jane laugh.

“Did he have an explanation?” she asks him.

“It’s Fandral,” Loki says dryly. “I assume he thought he was buying actual chicken soup. Imagine his surprise when three boxes of books showed up at his front door.”

“I was with him when he learned to read,” Jane says, almost wistfully. “It was a very exciting start to 2018.”

Jane’s wit and subtle bite catches Loki off guard enough that _he_ laughs.

“I thought you were nothing but a brain,” Loki says with an amused smile.

“I thought you were a ghost Thor hid in his closet,” Jane replies. She moves a stack of dusty old classics to one of the boxes behind her. “Do you two even talk?”

Funny story, Loki thinks.

“Occasionally our parents require us to eat together,” Loki says.

A man with four children comes up to the table.

“Is this a book sale?” he asks.

“The sign says book drive, so I am guessing not,” Loki replies dryly.

The man gives him a dirty look and moves away, his four spawn hanging off his limbs as he does so.

“You’re a lot more,” Jane gives Loki a scrutinizing look. “Frank than you are in school.”

Asshole is what she means, of course, but Loki is good at deflection.

“I like efficiency,” he says. “The sign was right there, if he could redirect his gaze for two seconds to read it.”

“We’re going to be getting a lot more questions like that,” Jane says. She straightens from beside her pile of boxes and pulls out a copy of _Goosebumps_. She puts it on the table on display.

“You are asking for children to come harass us,” Loki says accusingly.

“It’s really funny when you get annoyed,”Jane smiles, both innocent and devilish. “We have a long day ahead of us and I don’t like to be bored.”

This time Loki studies her with a close look.

Interesting, he thinks. Maybe not so much a bland cup of oatmeal after all.

“It will be truly funny when I start teaching the children incorrect facts about science,” Loki says and Jane looks both amused and scandalized. “Vaccines are fake, I’ll tell them. Tell your mothers to use essential oils instead.”

Jane takes the copy of _Goosebumps_ and hits Loki on the shoulder.

“Don’t you dare!” she exclaims heatedly and Loki just throws his head back and laughs.

  
The day passes slowly and not particularly luxuriously. Loki thinks the city could buckle under the weight of his disdain, but he keeps a smile on his face to make nice with Jane. She’s surprisingly not as dull as his stupid brother had described her to be, but they talk about school and they talk about volunteering and if Loki has to pretend for one more second he actually believes in helping the sniveling poor, he’s going to scream.

His mask stays in place, years of perfecting a bland and genuine façade over an undercurrent of slight malevolence benefiting him now. Books for the incarcerated, he thinks, sneering in his own mind. They’re in prison for rape and murder and robbery, but sure, let’s give them _books_ because even felons deserve to read and pretend they’re not being caged by their fellow humans.

Pathetic.

He and Jane shuffle past one another collecting books, stacking them, putting them away. There must have been partnerships between the library and different schools and do-gooder organizations because people do come and donate books, and proffer their unsolicited opinions about the criminal justice system at the same time.

“It’s modern day slavery,” an irritatingly passionate Latina girl says. She has curly hair and hoop earrings and looks like she would willingly punch someone for disagreeing with her. Loki eyes her warily.

Because Jane is earnest and conscious of her place in society or whatever, in addition to being a do-gooder, she engages with the aggressive teenager.

"I've been reading about that," Jane nods. She has her arms full of books that the girl, named America according to a name tag embroidered under a pocket at her chest, donated shortly before launching into all of the ways in which the Prison Industrial Complex is preying on brown and black bodies.

Loki doesn't roll his eyes, but it's a close thing.

He doesn't doubt she is correct, and in fact, knows that it's positively diabolical, the ways in which this country has capitalized off of marginalized communities while breaking their backs and caging their bodies. But what America is arguing for is nothing short of some far-fetched, idealist revolution that capitalism would crush within its first living breaths.

"You can read more about it here," America says and hands Jane a business card. "We organize rallies and protests. Sit ins. Writing campaigns. It's not everything, but everything is something, you know?"

Everything is something is complete nonsense and Loki is on the verge of breaking his promise not to snap at the people who waste his time in front of Jane when Jane tells America she will definitely visit the website and be in contact. The other girl leaves with a pleased smile.

Loki shoots Jane a look.

Jane laughs.

"I'm too busy for political activism, don't worry," she says. She slumps down into the chair next to Loki and stretches her legs out in front of her. Jane has been on her feet, shifting books all day.

Loki, on the other hand, has remained still and worked his usual charm on parents and authority figures. He has no idea what to do with children and teenagers are largely a waste of time to him if they can't be manipulated for his own purposes, but there's always a thrill to seeing how easily adults fall to his powers of persuasion.

"Is that so?" Loki says, smiling and leaning forward on his elbows. His cross necklace swings out from under his collar, hangs in the air in front of him for a moment before resting back against his throat.

"Oh no," Jane says, looking over at him. "I know that look."

Loki raises an eyebrow.

"Already?"

"You're not that hard to read," Jane says with a smile. "Okay, tell me. What did he say?"

Loki doesn't pretend he doesn't know who she's talking about.

"You made him watch the news," Loki says. He runs a finger over a cover of Machiavelli's _The Prince._ Loki is well aware of that particular work. Like every budding super villain, he has devoured and selectively subscribed to Machiavellian tenets. _It is better to be feared than to be loved_.

"Oh, I bet he hated that," Jane laughs.

Loki smiles.

"You made him research candidates before a political election he could not vote in," he says. "Because of you, he knows and cares about some issues."

"Ugh, a horror!" Jane says. She leans back in his chair and her brown hair, up in a ponytail, swings back and forth. "Monster girlfriend from the black lagoon."

Loki leans back onto one elbow and looks at her.

"He never said that," he says.

"Something worse?" Jane asks and suddenly her tone is a little more carefully casual, there's a little bit more fire in her eyes. She cares very deeply what Loki has to say, but won't come out and say that she does.

Interesting.

If Loki wasn't in the mood to win a bet and destroy his step brother in the process, he would take this opportunity to have fun, with both Jane and Thor.

"Surprisingly no," he says. "I've actually never heard him say a bad word against you."

"Come on," Jane says skeptically. "I know that's not true."

"It's true," Loki says, holding up both of his hands, palms toward her. "I have no reason to lie."

"He's your brother," Jane says.

"Step brother," Loki corrects. "As I said. We aren't that close."

That makes Jane frown slightly. She's not difficult to read, but she's subtler than Loki is used to, being surrounded daily by Amora, Bucky Barnes, and Thor.

"He said you were challenging," Loki says after a moment. That makes her expression flicker, but Loki shakes his head. "As in, you challenged him. He didn't always like what you did together or even see a value in it, but he thought it made him a better person."

Jane looks uncertain. She's naturally skeptical, Loki is surprised to find, but like any teenager who has been in love—or so Loki assumes, what does he know about love?—she is easily susceptible to nostalgia and flattery.

"That doesn't sound like him," she says slowly.

Loki shrugs.

"My step brother contains multitudes," he says. He thinks it might be overkill the moment he says it, but Jane looks as though she's considering it. "He is often very stupid at showing it, however."

Jane's expression lightens at that. She laughs softly.

"Do you think he can be a better person?" Jane asks, after a minute of watching people walk up the ramp to the library and back down. "Is he capable of being more than he is?"

Loki doesn't know that he's ever thought about Thor that hard.

"Do you?" Loki returns the question.

"I thought I did," Jane says. "I said I did. But I have never met someone with such a need for self-destruction."

Internally Loki thinks, _if only you knew_.

"He lost his mother when he was young," Loki says carefully. "Before we met, before my mother met his father, even, or maybe during, who can say? He's never dealt with it."

"He does like to run from his problems," Jane says. "I'm empathetic to that, but I can't be with someone who’s always avoiding the important things. 

Loki pauses just long enough and then leans toward her. The cross necklace moves against his chest again, glinting in the sun, making him seem pious, mocking her silently.

"Jane, can I ask you something?" he says quietly.

Jane seems like she knows what he's going to ask, but she nods anyway.

"Do you still love him?"

The moment and the expression that crosses her face are both pregnant and complicated. It's likely that she doesn't know and just as likely that she does, but doesn't know how to answer.

Loki only needs the right moment.

"He could hurt me," she says finally. "If I gave him the chance."

"Anyone could," Loki says.

"But especially him," Jane says. "I'm not stupid, Loki. I know his reputation. I know him. I've been with him. I don't plan on being Icarus."

There is something to be said about his step brother's almost violent beauty and magnetism, that he could take even the most assured person and dash her confidence against rocks.

"Thor is a lot of things, but is he cruel?"

Again, Jane looks uncertain. The thing about being kind is that you are always looking to give people who don't deserve it a second chance.

Jane is trying desperately not to give Thor that second chance; she clearly knows it's a bad idea, likely deep within her cognitive functions. But she's also kind, and in love. She needs less than a breath's nudge to fall.

"I do not know if you are better with him," Loki says, leaning back again. "But I know he was better with you."

"Is that enough?" Jane asks. She looks down at her palms, face up on her skirt.

"I don't know," Loki says, kindly. "Is it?

Jane frowns.

Loki smiles.

*

_sif’s loft, greenwich village, manhattan, new york_

Baldur's eyes had glowed blue in the light of the pool, the afternoon's rays settling around his shoulders. His white blond hair, slick with water, plastered to the back of his neck.

He had looked at Thor with all of the devotion of someone kneeling at the altar.

Thor had been surprised to see it there, but even more surprised at the revulsion that rose in him to see it. Everything Thor had ever wanted, he had eventually gotten. This, he hadn’t wanted, and he had gotten it too.

Baldur smiled at him and swam closer.

Worship was easy. Thor was surprisingly bored of easy.

Sif texts him and it’s a Friday night and Thor is frustrated and bored and somewhat listless, so he pulls on his jacket and finds Loki in his lair.

He knocks, because he’s found Loki in a compromising situation once before, and while it hadn’t been the most unpleasant experience, he’s in too much of a bad mood to entertain the visual of his step brother fucking someone else.

“Do you have a death wish?” Loki’s voice floats out to him.

“Maybe,” Thor says and pushes open the door. “If you’re in the corner jacking off, let me know so I can come back later.”

Loki, he finds, is sitting at his black granite desk, clothed in another silk robe, black this time.

“You look like a witch,” Thor says.

“First, I do not pleasure myself in corners,” Loki says. He looks up at Thor, one eyebrow arched severely. His legs are crossed and his hair is swept back off his shoulders. “Second, you are already inside, so if you would like an invitation next time I touch myself, slip a note under my door.” 

Thor snorts, but files away the instruction for later, in case Loki’s actually serious.

“Is there a third?” Thor says, crossing his arms at his chest.

“Yes,” Loki says haughtily. “I am a witch. Thank you.”

Thor snorts at that.

“What are you doing?”

Loki rolls a shoulder.

“Unlike you, some of us have futures to plan for,” he says.

Thor frowns.

“What are you talking about?”

“I have applications to fill,” Loki says with a roll of his eyes. “I cannot simply snap my fingers and have my work done for me. Not that you would understand, as I have never seen you do any work.”

“Oh good, you’re in one of those moods,” Thor says crossly.

“What mood might that be?” Loki asks.

“The only thing blacker than your mood is the sky outside,” Thor says.

“How poetic,” Loki says, icily. “Is that all?”

“Sif is having a party,” he says.  
  
“Ah,” Loki says. He lays an arm across his desk, taps his nails against the granite top. “Must be another Friday night.”

“It is a Friday night,” Thor blinks at him and Loki rolls his eyes.

“That is the _point_ ,” he says. “If you have come to see if I will join you and your merry band of idiots in drink, I told you. I am busy.”

Sometimes Loki’s like this, dark and difficult and so unbearably haughty that Thor can’t stand it.

“I’m working on applications too,” Thor says, scowling. He leans against the wall near the door. He had come here to force Loki to come with him, but whatever vestige of a good mood he’d been left with is quickly departing.

“What, right now?” Loki asks, eyes wide. “My, how efficient you are! I am sure you will get into the state school of your dreams!”

It’s like a slap to his face. Thor nearly staggers back from it, the meanness of Odin in Loki’s green eyes.

“Asswipe,” Thor growls. “Baldur and I are working on it together. You know, Baldur? The guy going to Yale?”

That’s a gut punch to Loki. Thor can see it ripple across his face.

“How _dare_ you bring him up?” Loki hisses. His green eyes flash in the dark, angry and hurt, and it gives Thor no small measure of satisfaction to know he’s elicited that from his step brother.

“Why? Is there something he has that you want, but can’t have?” Thor taunts.

Loki’s fingernails dig into his palm and Thor’s blood boils a little more, his heart races a bit faster. He’s a little dizzy from it, the sudden, gasping anger he feels.

“I will take it from him,” Loki says, lowly. “I will take _everything_ from him. And _anyone_ who stands in my way.”

“Big words,” Thor says. “From someone who’s coming in second to a physical loaf of bread. Maybe you can write that into your application. Excellent at come in second.”

“ _Get out_ ,” Loki says, slamming his palm down on his desk. He rises to his feet, his black silk robes sliding around him. He looks deadly, like a miasma of poison.

“I will get what I want,” Thor says, looking down at Loki. He doesn’t often use his height to its full advantage, but he does now, so wound up and angry is he. “I always get what I want.”

“Over my dead body,” Loki spits. “ _Now get out_.”

  
Thor calls Baldur immediately, punching the elevator button down.

“You wanted a break?” Thor says. He can hear how rough his voice is, how barely controlled. “I have an idea.”

Thor arrives in front of Sif’s loft before Baldur does. He doesn’t wait too long before a dark car pulls up and the white blond appears from inside the car, ghostly pale in the dark.

“What is this?” Baldur asks. “And are you okay?”

“Fine,” Thor breathes out. “Sif’s. Come on.”

  
Sif’s parties are little more than the usual suspects—Fandral in the corner lighting up a joint, Volstagg with some woman, Sif on Val’s lap, Hogun watching quietly from his perch on the stairs. Sometimes Sif will invite someone, a college student or one of her sister’s crazy exes. Sometimes Fandral will come with a girl, sometimes two, sometimes a boy, always bright blue eyes and copper hair.

Thor brought Jane once. It had been an unmitigated disaster.

Baldur seems to be taking it better.

“This all seems,” he says, opens and closes his mouth. “Slightly unethical. Definitely illegal.”

“We don’t worry too much about ethics,” Sif says lazily. Val has a hand crawling up the back of her shirt, her mouth attached to Sif’s neck.

“As for the illegal,” Fandral grins and hands Baldur a joint. “Who’s going to tell?”

Baldur objectively looks like he might, all clean corners and tucked hair. Instead, he watches the bacchanalia with interest and not a little excitement.

He takes the toke from Fandral.

“Not I, said the fly,” Baldur says and inhales.

  
Thor offers Baldur a beer and the other boy takes it without question.

“I thought you’d put up more of a fight than this,” Thor admits.

“I’m a teenage boy,” Baldur smiles, lifting the cold bottle to his mouth.

“You ever been drunk?” Thor asks. He has his own beer, although Fandral is messily pouring shots for the group on Sif’s expensive coffee table.

“Tequila’s better,” he’s arguing with Val, who’s emerged from under Sif’s shirt long enough to have a debate on her favorite topic—alcohol.

“That’s so boring,” she says. “It’s such a cliché I think half of the episodes of the OC were about it.”

“I _knew_ you were paying attention when we watched that!” Sif says next to her. Her voice is already getting lazier, the way it does when she’s high or drunk or newly fucked. Sometimes all three.

“It’s not a _cliché_ ,” Fandral says, waving around a bottle of José Cuervo. “It’s _tequila._ ”

“Not as much as all this,” Baldur says, watching the spectacle closely. He takes another long sip of his beer. “But like I said. I’m a teenage boy. I’ve had alcohol.”

“What,” Thor’s mouth twitches, “like the blood of Christ?”

Baldur chokes on his beer and Thor laughs out loud.

“Shut up!” Baldur says, swatting at Thor. He seems to only realize his fingers grazing Thor after the fact, because he slows his motion just as his hand leaves Thor’s arm.

Thor offers him his joint.

“How do you feel?” Thor asks, smiling.

Baldur considers the beer in one hand and the lit joint in the other. He takes a hit from the joint and blows out.

“Like someone else.”

  
That’s the drug that people never talk about. Thor and his friends, Loki and Amora, it’s not that they throw the best parties or wear the best clothes or find the best drugs. It’s that they’re wrapped in a layer of privilege and lack of consequence that’s so exquisitely impenetrable that it’s intoxicating.

It doesn’t take much to destroy someone good, but it takes even less time to press a finger under their chin and tilt their face up, bright and eager and shining and see there just how desperately they want this, to be a part of this, to taste that privilege on their tongue, if even for a moment.

Baldur’s eyes grow glossier the later the night grows. They drink through Sif’s collection of beer, share shots of tequila and vodka and some mixer that Fandral claims to call the Elixir of Life. Baldur looks green after that shot, but so do they all, because it tastes disgusting, frankly, but has not an insignificant amount of liquor in it. They pass around more joints, share lines of coke from a corner of the coffee table Val clears by sweeping empty bottles off with her arm.

Sif and Val start making out in the corner, unheeding the rest of the room, Val unbuckling Sif’s leather pants and slipping a hand in.

The rest ignore this because they’re mostly used to Sif and Val’s impressive ability to ignore everyone in their vicinity when they’re hooking up.

It doesn’t matter that much anyway because Volstagg takes his woman up to one of Sif’s rooms and Fandral passes out on the ground.

Hogun continues sitting on his perch.

Thor watches the slow disintegration of the collective conscience as though he’s watching one of those old movies, blurry but bright, no words, only sounds.The world feels both fast and sluggish.

Thor finishes his beer. He lost track of what number he’s on at least an hour ago.

Baldur’s head keeps lolling against Thor’s shoulder.

“‘m sorry,” he says, laughing. He keeps tripping over his words, sentences thick and jumbled in his mouth. “I think I’m—drunk.”

Thor is too, although not nearly as much as Baldur. It takes an exceptional amount of liquor and drugs to make him messy. He gets there, don’t get him wrong, but he’s only slightly messy now, which means Baldur is about five minutes from passing out in a corner in his own vomit.

“I should—go,” Baldur says. He’s flushed, his blue eyes so bright they’re reflecting the low lights in Sif’s loft. He staggers to his feet.

Thor looks up at him, this pale, white blond prince without any awareness of his own privilege or power. Baldur could be a king, but he settles for begging for one life while satisfying himself with a different one.

Pathetic.

Thor won’t let himself be like that.

Baldur sways on his feet and Thor is up to catch him before he falls.

“Oh,” Baldur breathes out as he leans heavily into Thor’s arms.

“Steady,” Thor whispers back.

“Thor,” Baldur looks up at him. It’s there again, his desire, flaring hot and bright. Thor can feel it in his stomach, how much Baldur wants him.

His hand moves up Thor’s arms.

Thor doesn’t move away.

Baldur cups the back of Thor’s neck and takes a breath. He wavers. For a moment he doesn’t look like he’s going to do it, like he’s going to talk himself out of this one illicit thing he wants.

“Are you going to be a good little Catholic boy?” Thor sneers. “Are you just going to do what’s expected of you?”

“No,” Baldur breathes out.

“Do what you want to do, Baldur,” Thor says. His hand curves over Baldur’s upper arm. “Stop being a coward.”

Baldur growls at that, a low and drunk sound from his chest.

He sways forward, catches Thor’s face in one hand, his other pressed to the back of his neck. He draws Thor roughly down the scant inch that separates them and kisses him.  
  
  
Thor gets home sometime past three am, more than a little fucked up, his entire body aching. He doesn’t really remember leaving Sif’s and he doesn’t remember calling the driver, but he must have, because he gets into his car and passes out on the way back to the penthouse.

He rouses himself, gets through the lobby to the elevator and up to the penthouse.

Thor’s head is so full of liquor and drugs that he doesn’t even stop himself from opening the door to Loki’s room. The room is dark except for the moonlight streaming in through the tall, gaping windows.

He finds Loki sprawled across the middle of the bed, robe slipping off his shoulders, hair rucked up, eyes bright, bright green in the dark.

“Brother,” Loki cackles.

He sounds sluggish too, fucked up and elated.

Thor watches him from the doorway and Loki slowly runs his tongue across his red, red mouth.

“You seem—” Thor tries to find words.

“High?” Loki says and laughs louder. His voice sounds shrill in the dark, echoing chillingly across the room and climbing up the high walls.

“Me too,” Thor says and then realizes Loki hadn’t asked him anything. He staggers into the room and lifts one knee onto the bed.

“Uh uh,” Loki says. “No touching.”

Thor growls, but listens. He crawls onto the bed and collapses next to Loki. He feels silk against his cheek.

Loki lays upside down and Thor beside him, their bodies opposite, but their heads next to one another.

“You look well fucked,” Loki says after a moment, licking his lips again.

Thor snorts.

“I was going to say that about you,” he says. “Who?”

“Why? Jealous?” Loki smirks.

“Do I have something to be jealous about?” Thor asks. He thinks he says it immediately after, but then realizes it’s been minutes. Time moves like molasses when you’re on every drug imaginable.

“No,” Loki says with a sigh. “He’s boring. Everyone is boring.”

Thor turns his head to look at Loki.

“Am I boring?”

Loki looks at him, as though considering.

“You are my brother,” he says.

“Step brother,” Thor corrects.

Loki has nothing to say to that, for once. Then he smiles, lazy and indulgent.

“Ah yes, our shared...father,” he says. “How is he?”

“Disappointed,” Thor says. He looks at the ceiling, trying to remember the last time Odin had bothered to reach out to him. His brain is too scrambled to remember and, frankly, he wouldn’t give a fuck even if it wasn’t. “Probably.”

“Thor,” Loki says and turns on his side. “Thor, Thor, Thor.”

Thor turns his gaze toward Loki.

“Yes?”

“Do you know your problem?” Loki asks and he leans over, serious.

“What?”

“You have no backbone.”

Thor feels a flicker of irritation.

“Excuse me?”

“Tell him _fuck you_ ,” Loki says. His face is bright, his tone close to giggles. “Fuck him! Odin who? Who cares?”

“He’s my father, Loki,” Thor says dryly.

“Yes and he _sucks_ ,” Loki says with a sigh. “I see how he treats you. Why do you let him?”

Thor frowns and scratches his nose. Loki leans onto his elbow so he can continue leaning over Thor.

“He’s my father,” he says.

“World’s full of shit fathers,” Loki says. “Look at mine.”

This is turning out to be a heavier conversation than Thor has the mental capacity for, but he feels comforted nonetheless. He reaches forward to touch Loki and Loki swats his hand away.

“No touching,” he says and Thor frowns. Loki smiles and brushes his fingers into Thor’s hair. “So, what? You keep killing yourself for someone who will never love you. Is it worth it?”

“What about you?” Thor deflects. “What of Farbauti?”

“What about her?” Loki says airily. “She’s stupid, but she loves me.”

“Odin loves me,” Thor says. “Loved. Once.”

“If you can’t make him love you, make him bend to you instead,” Loki says. He runs his fingers down Thor’s scalp, scraping his nails against the skin there.

“How?” Thor sighs.

“Show him,” Loki says and his nails dig in.

Thor shudders.

“Show him what?”

“That you are not a prince, but a _king_.”

Thor has been called a lot of things—spoiled, entitled, aimless, a brat—but never this, never a _king_. There’s something heavy about the word, not just a title, but a mantle. There’s power there, a world in the palm of his hands.

Loki makes it seem so easy. As though he could win against his father, just by believing in himself.

“Am I one?” Thor asks Loki after a moment.

“You could be,” Loki says. He’s watching Thor’s mouth. “We both could.”

Thor can still feel Baldur’s mouth against his own, his tongue in his mouth, a messy kiss, an overeager kiss. Baldur is all stamina and excitement. He has no nuance to him. Thor has never thought before that he wants nuance, but he watches Loki’s mouth closely and considers otherwise, or as much as he can consider when his brain is processing thoughts like pudding.

“Did I lose?” Loki asks quietly.

“What?” Thor blinks.

“The bet,” Loki says. He reaches forward, brushes his fingertips down Thor’s face, traces the curve of his nose and the slow of his chin. The pads of his fingers, soft and smooth, glide over Thor’s throat, stop briefly against Thor’s collarbone. His nail grazes the chain at Thor’s neck and Thor’s breath catches in his throat.

“No,” Thor says. He feels what air is in his lungs leave them with a little swoosh.

Loki’s fingers continue tracing, his fingertip crawling up Thor’s throat this time, then down, over his Adam’s apple, then down to his collarbone again.

Thor stays quiet, his breathing becoming louder and shallower in the dark.

“Did I?” Thor asks after a minute.

Loki’s thumb brushes Thor’s cheekbone.

“No,” he says. “But you will. And then you will have what you want.”

Even out of his mind, Thor thinks Loki could not possibly guess what he wants. He’s only starting to understand himself.

“How will I have what I want when I lose?” Thor asks quietly.

“You will have Jane,” Loki says softly. “You will have your vengeance.”

It had seemed more urgent under the light of day, when his heart and reputation had both been dashed against the rocks by a woman he had secretly thought was beneath him.

By cover of night and feel of Loki’s hands, he’s not sure it’s so urgent anymore.

He’s not sure of anything anymore.

“Are we bad people?” Thor asks Loki, quietly.

Loki laughs lightly at that. It’s an airy sound, one Thor swallows eagerly.

“It’s a little late to ask, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Thor answers.

But maybe not, Thor thinks. Maybe it’s all relative and you’re only as bad as the thing you want the very most.

Loki’s face is unreadable as he turns toward him, eyes tracing Thor’s swollen lips, his hair all askew. Something flashes there, in the dark, but Thor can’t name what it is.

His fingers close around Mjölnir again and Thor lets him, this time.

“Are you calling off the bet?” he asks.

“No,” Thor says.

“Will you let Baldur defeat you?” Loki says, quieter, drawing the necklace taut. “As he did me?”

Thor lets him, for a second, before leaning up on his elbow.

He leans over Loki then, their faces mere inches apart, Loki upside down, Thor the opposite.

They stare at one another, the air between them full of unspoken challenge. Thor cups Loki’s face, leans closer.

Loki’s breath quickens.

Then Thor reaches down and plucks the cross necklace from Loki’s neck, just grasps it in his hand and pulls until it breaks off.

“No,” Thor says, hard, and gets up.

  
Maybe the thing Thor wants the very most is bad too.

But, watching Loki fall asleep, his dark lashes brushing his cheekbones, his mouth curved up into a soft, pleased smile, Thor thinks it can’t be all bad.

They can’t be all bad.

*

_saint asgardia preparatory school library, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Loki looks up from his notebook to see Jane frowning at something.

“It’s calculus, Jane,” he says. “No one understands it.”

“What?” Jane blinks at him. Then she looks down at her textbook. “Oh, no. Calculus is fine. It’s actually really easy for me.”

Loki raises an eyebrow and she blushes.

“Sorry,” she says. “No, it’s just that—is that your brother?”

Loki raises the other eyebrow in a look of pure skepticism and looks over his shoulder.

Sure enough, there’s Thor, laptop open, leaning over his shoulder to ask something of—

A hot flash of anger and jealousy bubbles through Loki’s stomach.

“With Baldur?” Jane finishes.

“It would appear that way,” Loki says coldly.

“I didn’t know he gave Baldur the time of day,” Jane admits. “I’ve also never seen him in the library.”

It would be so easy to poison Jane against Thor now. The right slip of the right fact would ruin him now, dash all chances of reconciliation.

But no, Loki thinks, seeing the chain at Thor’s neck. It’s about more than just the easiest barb. Loki would ruin Thor’s chance of getting revenge, but he would never ruin _Thor_ that way. He would never own him in the way he wishes to.

Loki is tempestuous, but he plays his hands intelligently, with the end goal in mind.

“I believe he and Baldur are working on his college applications,” Loki says.

A pause.

“What?” Jane asks incredulously.

“Harvard is his top choice,” Loki says. “They’ve been working on it for weeks.”

“You’re kidding me,” Jane says. She genuinely, truly looks so surprised that Loki almost laughs out loud.

“I was just as surprised as you are,” Loki shrugs. “If I hadn’t seen the application myself I would have assumed he was lying.”

Lies, of course. Loki has never seen the thing and for all he knows, Thor is writing erotic fan fiction instead.

“He was so lost when we were dating,” Jane says. “He had no goals. No ambition.”

 _Getting your inheritance threatened by your father will change a man,_ Loki thinks.

“People change, Jane,” Loki says. “You do know that?”

Jane at least has the wherewithal to look chastened.

“I know,” she says with a sigh. “I just didn’t realize it would happen so...fast.”

Loki carefully pushes his laptop to the side and leans forward.

“Are you having...second thoughts?”

“No!” Jane says. Then, with a sigh, “I don’t know. I thought he was one person. And now it turns out that maybe he’s another. I thought I knew what I was doing.”

Loki makes a small noise of assent and then tilts his head.

“How do he and Baldur look?”

“Friendlier than I expected,” she says. “They’re both laughing. He’s really applying to Harvard?”

“Without Odin’s help, if you can imagine.” 

“ _What_?”

Loki simply smiles at her.

“If you miss him, you should say something,” he says.

“No,” Jane replies immediately. “I’m not going to be that girl.”

Loki rolls his eyes and reaches across the table to tap at her book.

“The girl who gets her guy again? Come on.”

“Fool me once,” Jane recites and Loki laughs.

“You think Thor is capable it fooling you? Look at him.”

Jane does. Loki can see her wavering. She’s so close to the nostalgic wave of first love that her instincts are screaming at her to listen and she’s ignoring them altogether.

It’s perfect.

“Listen,” Loki says.”There’s always the dance. Ask him, tell him to give you another chance. Go with him and if he says no, we can go together.”

“We?” Jane stares at him. “As in us?”

Loki raises an eyebrow.  

“Sorry, I just meant, what about Amora?”

“Amora?” Loki blinks, actually taken aback. “What about Amora?”

“Aren’t you two—?”

There are very few times that Loki is dumbfounded and he’s not proud to admit that this is one of those times.

“Wouldn’t she love that?” he mutters darkly under his breath before looking at Jane in revulsion. “Oh no. God, no!”

Of course that blonde she-devil would choose that very moment to come looking for Loki. He sees her long, silken hair swinging from side to side as she searches through the stacks for him. 

Loki nearly sighs out loud.

“Does she know that you aren’t?” Jane asks, amused.

If Amora finds him, there will be no room left to work peacefully on his papers. And Amora always finds him.

Loki shuts his laptop down and gets up. Jane watches him, but her eyes flicker back to Thor again.

“Think about it,” Loki says. “No harm to you either way.”

Jane looks at Loki and then looks at Thor and then sighs.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll think about it.”

Loki nods at her. Then he disappears through one of the side aisles just as Amora finds their table.

Was Loki here?” she asks Jane, none too kindly.

Loki?” Jane replies. “I don’t know him.”

She gives Amora a fake smile and goes back to work.

At the other table, unknown to them all, Thor watches.

  
Thor finds him by his locker.

“I saw you and Jane,” he says, leaning against the locker next to Loki’s. 

“I saw you with Baldur,” Loki says.

He puts away one book and takes out another. Thor doesn’t have his step brother’s schedule memorized, but he is certain that Loki takes more classes than are strictly required.

“Loki,” Thor says, although he has no follow up.

“Focus, Thor,” Loki says, as though he can read Thor better than anyone. It’s unsettling to Thor to think maybe that’s right. Maybe Loki can.

“The terms have not changed,” Loki says quietly. “And neither have my desires. I want Yale and I want to destroy Baldur in the process. If you are feeling guilty about that now—well, you know the price.”

Thor can feel Mjölnir against his breastbone, laying heavily against everything he’s been feeling as of late.

“You’ll get what you want, Loki,” Thor says quietly. “You always do.”

“Correct,” Loki says. He adjusts his tie and closes his locker door. “And what I want now is for you to keep your end of the bet, because I am keeping mine.”

Thor sees Jane headed their way. She sees the two of them and frowns slightly. She gives Thor a look and he smiles back at her, thoughts miles away.

She turns into a classroom and Thor sighs. He leans closer to Loki, is about to ask him something into his ear, when they both hear a pair of voices and freeze.

“What did you hear?” someone, a freshman, is whispering in a voice anyone with two ears could hear.

“They’re too close,” another one says. “Peter said he saw them nearly _kissing_.”

“Wait, but they’re like—brothers?”

“Stepbrothers. I think their dad and mom got married.”

“That’s still not right.”

“It’s like, incest. I’m positive they are.”

“Shit. I thought Thor liked girls? Isn’t he a manwhore? And Loki seems gay as hell.”

Loki’s fingernails suddenly dig into Thor’s arm.

“There’s definitely something going on there,” the first freshman says. “No one will believe me, but I can feel these things. Like, I don’t care how popular they are. I know what I know.”

“Okay, you’re a weirdo, but yeah. I think you’re right,” the other kid says. “They’re not...right.”

“It’s only a matter of time until someone catches them,” the first one says. He sounds almost _gleeful_. “Imagine that holier-than-thou look getting wiped off of Loki’s face. Like okay, lead all the school prayers you want, but we all still know you’re fucking your brother.”

Loki seems like he’s going to lunge around the corner at the oblivious fresh meat, but Thor grabs his wrists before he can do anything. His brother’s face is nearly red with fury. Thor has seen this expression on Loki’s face before and it’s never boded well for the person on the receiving end.

“ _I’ll show them who’s not right_ ,” Loki hisses.

Amora, who’s crossing the hallway at that exact moment, finds herself immediately in Loki’s grasp.

“Loki,” Thor warns, but his brother ignores him.

“Those two freshmen around the corner,” Loki snaps. “Who are they?”

“Them? I don’t know,” Amora says. “Can you let go of me, I bruise easily.”

Loki gives her such a glare that a lesser person than Amora would collapse into dust under its ill will. Amora just raises an eyebrow.

“What crawled up your ass and died there?”

“Find out their names,” Loki growls. “Do what you do. Destroy them.”

Amora looks at their retreating backs with viper-like interest.

“Loki, this isn’t—” Thor tries again, but Loki glares at him.

“Know your place, Thor,” he says, which makes _Thor_ angry.

“Fine,” Thor says. “Have your petty revenge. What’s another life when you’re already in the middle of destroying so many?”

Loki’s eyes narrow and Thor can’t stand it anymore, the bet, the duplicity, the confusion, any of it.

He punches the locker next to Loki’s in frustration, exhaling explosively, and walks away.

  
Jane catches him as he’s about to leave the school grounds.

“Thor,” she says.

Thor, who has only one thought in his mind, which is to get as far away from Loki and the school as possible, isn’t in the right mood for an interruption from his ex.

“Yeah?” he says, turning toward her.

“Where are you going?” Jane frowns.

“Why, do you want to judge me some more?” Thor replies. It’s not a sneer exactly, but it’s a close approximation of one because he’s completely over everything.

“I deserved that,” Jane says after a moment. “I’m sorry. I just saw you and—how are you? It’s been a while.”

 _Yeah, since you dumped me because I was too aimless for you_ , Thor almost retorts, but learns to bite his tongue.

“Fine,” he says, instead. “I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“Oh,” Jane says and then flushes as she further realizes how immediately unkind she was being.

“Yeah, so,” he says and moves to turn but Jane stops him again with a small hand on his elbow.

“I heard you were applying to Harvard,” she says.

Thor stills at that.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get in,” Jane says with a confident smile. “You have everything you need to succeed. I’m so proud of you.”

Something about that—all of it, strikes Thor as disingenuous, or needlessly patronizing.

“You’re not my mom,” Thor says, turning on her.

“What?” Jane’s smile slips off her face. “I didn’t mean—”

“My mom is dead and my dad hates me. I don’t need you to be proud of me,” Thor says hotly.

Jane seems to take a deep breath and cringe back.

Thor might be being unkind, but he doesn’t fucking care. He’s _over_ it.

“I don’t need your validation,” Thor says. “Or his. Or anyone’s.”

“What about Loki?” Jane asks.

Thor’s mind, angry and screaming, grinds to a halt.

“What?”

“What about Loki?” Jane repeats. “Do you need his validation?”

Thor doesn’t know why she’s asking and he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to think about Loki right now.

“No,” he says shortly and turns on his heels.

He storms out of the school.

*

_office building, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dr. Banner says from his desk, “I get paid either way. But it is your father’s money, so if you wanted to say anything in the remaining twenty minutes, it wouldn’t be the most financially irresponsible decision you’ve made.”

Thor, who’s been silently stewing for the better part of forty minutes glares at the ceiling above the chaise he’s currently sprawled across. He doesn’t take the opportunity to say anything else, but he does take a pillow into his arms and slam a fist into it.

“Okay,” Dr. Banner says and straightens in his seat. “That’s a start. You’re angry.”

The Good Doctor makes it sound so easy. You’re angry, Thor. You’re hurt, Thor. You’re lost and adrift in an ocean of things you can’t control, Thor.

“Why are you angry?” he asks mildly.

Everything Dr. Banner says is mild, which Thor is sure is some kind of shrink tactic, but Dr. Banner is also a straight shooter, so it doesn’t come off as disingenuous. Thor thinks only someone who’s both not afraid of bullshit, but also genuinely kind could have lasted this long with him.

“I don’t know,” Thor finally mutters.

“How long have you felt this way?” Dr. Banner asks.

“I don’t know,” Thor mutters, petulant.

“Okay. Sometimes it’s just like that,” Dr. Banner says. He sighs and taps a pen against his notepad. “Let’s try this. Tell me a good thing.”

Thor, who’s ready to continue stewing, pauses at that.

“What?” he asks.

“One good thing,” Dr. Banner says. “It doesn’t matter what. Something that’s happened to you, or someone you like. Something you own. The parameters are broad.”

Thor hates playing guessing games, but he also can’t stand himself right now, so he sighs and stretches his back on the chair as he thinks.

“My necklace,” he says. His fingers go to the chain around his neck.

“What is it?” Dr. Banner asks curiously.

Thor takes it out from under his chest. The little hammer glints in the office light.

“Mjölnir,” he says. “She’s a hammer. A Nordic legend, given only to the most worthy.”

“Why is she good?” Dr. Banner asks, which, to be fair, is the right question.

Thor traces the tiny runes engraved into her sides.

“She was given to me by someone good,” he says.

Dr. Banner smiles at that, taps the pen against his mouth.

“Is she good because she’s absorbed some of that person’s goodness?” he asks. “Or is she good because the act of giving her to you was good?”

Thor says nothing for a moment, then, “Both.”

Dr. Banner doesn’t follow up to that, which makes Thor’s skin itch. He’s answering questions carefully, thoughtfully, but also rotely. The silence makes him feel a little displaced.

“She’s good and reminds me to do good,” Thor says. He holds the end of her in between his fingers. “The person who gave it to me said she belonged only to the most worthy.”

Dr. Banner smiles at that.

“So this person thought you were worthy,” Dr. Banner says.

Thor swallows thickly.

“Yeah.”

“Do you feel worthy?” Dr. Banner asks.

The feeling in Thor’s chest grows, hot and sticky. Guilty.

“Maybe that’s not the right question,” Dr. Banner amends. “Do you think you want to be worthy?”

Thor doesn’t answer, but then, after a minute, nods.

“Okay,” Dr. Banner says. “Do you think you can be worthy?”

Thor takes a breath that’s remarkably shaky. Then he shrugs.

“Why not? What’s keeping you from that?”

Thor doesn’t know how to answer that. He’s not a person who believes in pure goodness, it’s never occurred to him before to think about it, really. He is who he is and everyone around him is who they are. He’s never thought to question any of it.

“Okay,” Dr. Banner says. “What about the person who gave it to you? Would she think you can be worthy?”

Thor thinks about his mother’s kind blue eyes, her thin hands, ravaged by time and cancer, her golden hair, just like Thor’s, falling from her head in long, shimmering strands. Mjölnir was the last thing she had ever given him. He had been thirteen years old and at the hospital with her, her last weekend alive. She had taken his face in her hands, kissed his forehead, and told him he was good, that no matter what, he should try to be good and find good. Then she had taken a little black box from her side table and pressed it into his hands.

 _This is Mjölnir_ , she had said. _She belongs only to the most worthy, Thor. She belongs to you, my darling_.

“Thor?” Dr. Banner says softly and it’s only then that Thor realizes that his face is slick with tears.

He shoves his hand across his face. It comes away wet.

“Is it time?” Dr. Banner asks quietly. “To talk about her?”

Thor shakes his head, his chest quaking, his entire life feeling frayed at the edges. He’s lost his way somewhere, maybe the Doctor had been right all along. He’s adrift, heartbroken and alone.

He clasps Mjölnir in his warm palm. She feels cool and solid against him.

 _My darling_ , Thor remembers and he feels like he’s falling apart again.

He nods this time.

*

_saint asgardia preparatory school, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Amora’s plan, like most of her plans, involves her sleeping with her unwitting victims and spreading vicious lies about it after. Sometimes Loki allows this. Sometimes he puts an end to it out of sheer boredom. This time she decides she’s going to spread the rumor that they have STIs, which is uninspired, but effective.

Loki has more important things to do.

He has another appointment with champion of the brainless, Coulson.

It’s been months since Coulson had so callously and incorrectly written off Loki’s aspirations.

In the meantime, in addition to setting forth half a dozen other schemes and almost assuredly winning his bet with Thor, Loki has maintained his perfect grades, continued volunteering, and wrapped Tyr further around his finger.

Loki has remained pristine, untouchable.

Baldur, on the other hand, has ended up at Sif’s more weekends than not since Thor took him the first time. Loki isn’t stupid. He doesn’t go himself, but he knows to pay attention.

Loki adjusts his tie and jacket and knocks on Coulson’s door.

“Come in, come in,” comes Coulson’s voice.

Loki turns the doorknob and lets himself in. The other man sits at his desk, looking through someone else’s a file. He puts it away with a smile as Loki takes the seat opposite him.

“Mr. Laufeyson,” Coulson says. “Have you been thinking about what we talked about last time? How have your applications been going?”

Loki controls his breathing and schools his face into a smile.

“It is going well,” he says. “I am confident in it.”

If that throws Coulson, he doesn’t show it.

“Does that mean you haven’t considered any of the other options we mentioned?”

“We did not mention anything,” Loki says, a bit pointedly. “As I said last time, I will be attending Yale.”

Coulson studies Loki over his folders.

“Mr. Laufeyson,” he says. “You’re an intelligent young man.”

“Yes,” Loki says.

“St. Asgardia’s sends its students to the best schools around the world. We are known for our pedigree and we earn that reputation,” Coulson says.

“Yes.”

“But we do not send multiple students to each school,” Coulson says. “At least not to certain Ivy League schools. I am not going to lie to you, you deserve more than that.”

Loki sits primly, quiet and turning white with barely controlled fury.

“We send only one student to Yale each year and it has been so since the beginning of our relationship with that university,” Coulson says. He almost sounds apologetic. “I believe everyone knows the Headmaster recommends which student to send there and he has chosen Baldur. I am sorry.”

Loki shakes.

“I can not recommend you only apply to one school,” Coulson says, shaking his head. “Especially not if that school is Yale. Please take a look at the others. They are all _good_ schools.”

Loki takes a hot, furious breath. He’s so angry he’s nearly burning with it.

“I have been more than patient with you,” Loki says. He stands slowly. “I have listened to you drone on, twittering idiocy I have only tolerated because it was in my interest to do so. But I have no more use for your good opinion. I am not a _good_ student. I am an _exemplary_ student. I am the best you have ever had. So do not sit there with your pathetic, mediocre job and tell _me_ that I will be going to a _good_ school.”

Coulson watches Loki closely, says nothing. His smile has slipped off his face, replaced by something hard, as though he’s suspected this of Loki all along.

“I will go where I want,” Loki says. “And I will ruin anyone who seeks to stop me.”

Coulson stands now too.

“I have met many privileged, spoiled brats in my work here, Mr. Laufeyson,” Coulson says with a cold smile. “I wasn’t intimidated by them and I will not be intimidated by you.”

Loki laughs at that.

 _I will ruin you_ , he thinks, because he already knows how to do it.

*

_penthouse, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Thor finds Loki pacing the penthouse floor, fury coiled like an angry viper. He’s a bit terrifying like this, quiet and seething, his head running miles a minute, all thoughts assuredly poisonous.

He has his arms crossed at his chest, his hair swept back out of his eyes, eyes dark and glittering above a mouth curled up at the corners. He looks livid and beautiful.

Loki always looks beautiful.

“Loki,” Thor says cautiously.

Loki looks up at him and the cold in his eyes is an endless abyss. Thor falls into them with a surprised inhale.

“Brother,” Loki says, so sweetly that Thor knows he is about to get bitten.

He steps toward him anyway.

“Do you think I am cruel?” Loki asks.

Thor takes another step toward him.

Loki watches him carefully.

Thor stops a scant few inches away, barely enough space to form a full breath between them.

“Yes,” Thor says.

Loki’s mouth curls up further.

“Very good,” he says.

Thor reaches forward and Loki makes no move to pull away.

“Do you think I am vindictive?” Loki says, tilting his head.

“Yes,” Thor answers.

His thumb brushes Loki’s jaw. If his step brother notices, he does not show it.

“Then do I deserve to get what I want?” Loki asks.

That’s a harder question to answer. Or it should be.

But Thor, still unsteady on his feet, torn apart as he was by his appointment, finds it scarily easy to answer.

Loki is cruel and vindictive. He is mean and jealous and petty. He is also brilliant and intuitive and beautiful. He knows Thor better than anyone else. Believes in him better than anyone else. Thor thinks Loki loves him better than anyone else too.

“Yes,” he says.

Loki laughs softly, something that crumbles against Thor’s collarbone.

Thor presses his thumb down again, this time on Loki’s pulse point. His nail bites down against the steady thrum of his brother’s heartbeat, his fingers wrapped around the back of Loki’s neck.

He presses, meaning to bruise and Loki inhales sharply in pleasure.

Thor pulls him closer and Loki’s long fingers flit up to Thor’s face. He could claw his eyes out and likely means to. Instead, the pale fingers brush against Thor’s cheekbones.

They breathe in tandem, roughly, as though they’ve done more than just touch.

Thor looms over him, steady as a brick wall. Loki stands rightly, still coiled, the tension rolling off his shoulders.

“Have you fucked anyone?” Thor asks, his voice low. “Since we made the bet?”

“Yes,” Loki says with a smirk. “I called each of them by your name.”

Thor nearly blacks out with need.

“And how did that feel?” he asks.

“Not like I was fucking my brother,” Loki says softly. “But close.”

Thor can’t stand it anymore. He tugs Loki closer, his hard length pressing against Loki’s thigh.

“Ah,” Loki says. It comes out breather than either of them expected, which only makes Thor’s eyes turn darker with desire.

“Tell me what you want,” Thor says. He sounds wrecked. He feels it too; out of control, spiraling, and wrecked.

Loki traces Thor’s face carefully, almost gently.

“We are more alike than we are different,” he says. “Did you know that?”

That makes Thor pause, watch Loki closely.

“You and I are two of a kind,” Loki says.

His fingers stop at Thor’s lips and he looks at Thor, really looks at him. Thor feels the weight of that gaze on him, heavy and clear. Loki is a lot of thing, manipulative and a liar above all. But he can never lie to Thor. Thor has ever been able to see through him. 

He can tell the weight of Loki’s truth by the smoothness of his brows, by the way his mouth remains neutral. When Loki is telling Thor the truth, he forgets he is always otherwise lying.

Thor knows him in a way no one else does.

They are two of a kind.

“There is no one else like us,” Loki says.

Thor leans forward, but Loki presses three fingers to his mouth to stop him.

“After,” he says. “If you win our bet.”

“I will win,” Thor promises.

“We each of us have lives to ruin,” Loki says.

  
Thor doesn’t know if he’s good and if he doesn’t know if he’s bad, but he does know this—that there is little Loki could ask him that he would not do for him. For them.

Loki leaves him, slamming the door to his room behind him as he disappears, schemes, cruel machinations, and all. Thor watches him go, Dr. Banner’s words echoing in his head.

 _You miss her,_ Dr. Banner had said. _She took something with her when she died. A part of you you weren’t ready to lose._

_Now I want you to think about this, Thor. Is there anyone else who gives you back some of what you lost? Someone who helps you find meaning in what you do, makes you feel less alone in the world?_

Thor is still reeling from the realization.

_Is there someone who sees you as clearly as she did?_

_Yes,_ he had answered in his head. _Yes, yes, and yes._

*

_baldur’s high-rise, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Thor clicks submit and stares at the computer screen for a whole minute before letting out a breath. He had written, re-written, unwritten, and re-re-written his personal statements. He had taken the SAT twice, raising his score remarkably each time. He had three letters of recommendation. He had looked over his application until he had gone cross-eyed.

Finally, Baldur had covered Thor’s hand with his own and guided the cursor to the submit button.

“You did it,” Baldur says with a smile. He lets out a breath too and then he grins. “Next stop, Harvard.”

“You deserve a drink,” Baldur says, shortly thereafter and he sways to his feet, finds Thor the best whiskey his father keeps in their bar.

Thor watches him, half-hearted and dizzy with feeling. He’s not sure he had realized, until now, the weight he had been carrying. He doesn’t care about Harvard and he sure as hell doesn’t care about Odin, but he does, somehow, care about making something of himself. He wants to get in to the best school so that he can be the best. He doesn’t have a goal, but he has an aim and that was enough, Dr. Banner had said.

He slumps against the couch, takes his phone out and takes a picture of his face. Thinks about sending it to Fandral and then sends it to Loki instead.

Baldur comes back and sets the whiskey on the table, fills two shot glasses to the brim, one for each of them.

“To you,” Baldur says and hands Thor his.

“Thank you,” Thor says. “For your help.”

“I barely did anything, Thor. That was all you,” Baldur says. He raises his shot glass. “Salut.”

Thor clinks his shot glass against Baldur’s and then tips it back, feeling relief as the whiskey burns down his throat.

  
Baldur pours them another shot and then another one and they share them all, the liquid reviving them and unmooring them at the same time. Baldur places a hand against Thor’s chest and Thor looks down at him, all flushed face and messy, white blond hair. His eyes are glassy, his entire face alight with something close to reverence.

“Thor,” Baldur says. “I want to—”

He stops and breathes in and breathes out, tries again.

“I want it to be you.”

Thor is not in the habit of flushing, but he almost does now. He looks at Baldur carefully. As carefully as he can while half-drunk.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Yes,” the other boy breathes out, his eyes dark. He reaches for Thor’s belt. “Yes. Can I—?”

“We don’t have to—” Thor tries again and Baldur smothers his protest with a kiss.

It’s the kind of hard kiss that should be searing.

Coming from someone with dark hair and green eyes, it would have Thor falling to his knees. But from Baldur, it’s only slightly uncomfortable and messy, all edges and knocking teeth. Thor opens his mouth and Baldur licks in easily, eagerly. Thor slows it down, one hand at Baldur’s neck, the other at his shoulder.

“Slow down,” he says into the kiss and Baldur whines.

“Do you not want—” Baldur asks, breaking the kiss. He looks at Thor like he could love him and it makes Thor dizzy, in a bad way. He wants to throw the shot glasses against the ground, just to see something break.

“Yeah,” Thor says. “I do. Just—are you sure?”

“Yes,” Baldur says. He cups Thor’s face with his hand and kisses him again, sloppy and deep. “God, yes, I’m sure. I’ve wanted this for—Fuck me. I want you to fuck me.”

Thor pulls back just an inch, thinks about how easily this could break Baldur, how it’s meant to do just that. He runs a hand through Baldur’s sweaty hair and thinks about how he feels bad and how he doesn’t feel bad enough.

He’s not bad, but he’s not good either.

“I lo—” Baldur starts and Thor covers his mouth with his hand immediately. Baldur looks at him, wide-eyed and beseeching, an angel on his knees.

Mostly, Thor wants to win, this one thing, so that he can have the thing he wants most of all.

Thor doesn’t know what that makes him, but Baldur is reaching into his pants and suddenly he doesn’t care anymore.

If this is what Baldur wants, fine.

If this is what Loki wants, then fine.

Thor removes Baldur’s hand from his pants and pushes him until Baldur falls onto his back. He crawls over him, straddles Baldur’s thighs.

Baldur looks up at him hungrily.

It isn’t exactly what Thor wants, but that’s okay. What Thor wants can wait for later.

First, he’s going to fuck his brother’s arch rival.  
  
  
After, when Baldur is laying next to him, softly sleeping, Thor gets up. He finds his underwear and pants on the ground, pulls them on and runs a hand through his hair.

The room glows around them, moonlight coming in through Baldur’s high windows. They had finished on the couch and moved into Baldur’s bedroom, Baldur begging to be shown everything he has yet to learn.

Thor picks up his phone from the ground now.

One missed call from Odin, one from Sif, and one from Fandral. A single text message, from Loki.

He hasn’t said anything, no comment about the earlier selfie.

Instead, he’s just sent a picture of himself back. His green eyes, glittering, his mouth curved into a smile. His hair half up off his shoulders, the rest curling down onto them.

Thor feels it settle, somewhere deep in his chest.

He takes a breath and saves it.

*

_lady m cake boutique, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

“I’m sorry, I’m supposed to believe you’re surprised you got into MIT?” Loki asks and Jane smiles, partly pleased and partly abashed.

They’re at Lady M, sharing a slice of the green matcha crepe cake. Every bite is indulgent and Loki considers the number of hours he will have to spend on the elliptical to burn them off. It is exquisite enough to be worth it.

“You can’t assume these things,” Jane says. She takes a small bite herself. “What about you? Any news from Yale?”

“It’s a work in progress,” Loki says blandly.

“Any day now, I’m sure,” Jane says.

Loki has no desire to discuss Yale with anyone, let alone Jane Foster.

He slices another delicate piece of the cake.

“Listen, Loki,” Jane says after an acceptable period of quiet.

Loki savors the taste of matcha on his tongue. He swallows and raises an eyebrow at her.

“I have ears, I can hardly turn them off,” he says.

Jane, who has become surprisingly used to and adept at handling Loki’s unrelenting sardonicism, just sighs. She picks up her coffee and puts it down. She’s _fidgeting_. Jane Foster does not fidget.

“I think I might have made a mistake,” Jane says finally.

Loki nearly glows inside. Outside, he remains carefully neutral.

“If you do not want to go to MIT, apply elsewhere,” he says.

“What? No, not that,” Jane says with a distracted frown. She sighs. “With Thor.”

“Ah,” Loki says. He takes another small bite. A matcha victory lap. “You did what you thought was right.”

“I know,” Jane says. “I know that. When we were together—he was different. He didn’t take anything seriously. I was tired of being the adult in the relationship. We’re 18, I’m not ready to have to be anyone’s adult. But.”

“He grew up,” Loki says.

“He couldn’t have done that while we were going out?” Jane laughs, a little bitterly.

Loki shrugs. He twirls the fork between his forefinger and thumb.

“My step brother works on his own timeline,” he says. “Maybe losing you helped him, I couldn’t say.”

“It’s not just me, right?” Jane asks, frowning at the remaining bit of cake. She looks up at Loki and he almost feels bad. She trusts him, thinks they’re friends. It is so desperately easy to manipulate the kind. “He’s different now.”

“He is,” Loki says and he’s surprised to find that he’s actually telling the truth.

Loki’s never minded Thor, truthfully. His step brother has always been indulgent and lazy, aimless and reckless. There was something heady about that, about knowing someone who didn’t have every step of their future, immediate and distant, planned out. With Farbauti for a mother and Laufey for a father, Loki had never had any choice. If he didn’t control his surroundings, he would have no control at all. That, he had learned young, when Laufey had gotten himself arrested and Farbauti had spiraled into drink and excessive spending.

Loki had been ten, maybe eleven years old, watching his mother quickly waste what was left of their funds. He hadn’t been a capitalist then, but he had been a scared ten, maybe eleven year old. There were days he had gone without food, without a functioning parent. He had woken up one day to find his mother lying on the rug in the living room, a bottle in her hand, her furs and jewels around her. He remembers that day as being the last he ceded any control, to anyone. Loki could only count on himself and he counted on himself only so far as he could plan what he would do next.

Did Farbauti think Odin had just _landed_ into her manicured claws?

Compared to that kind of life, Thor seems free to live one with minimal consequences. Oh, sure, Odin threatens him, just to make sure his son has some semblance of a future, but Loki would take even that. If Thor falls, he has his father to catch him. If Loki falls, he has nothing anymore.

It’s strange, now that Thor doesn’t want to risk falling at all. Loki thinks he can catch glimpses of him sometimes, the person Thor could have been all along.

Loki had captured a shark for his mother and a Thor for himself.

“Do you still love him?” Loki asks carefully.

Jane looks distraught, as though Loki asked her if she would carve her heart out and give it to Thor in sacrifice. Maybe, he muses, he did.

“Yes,” she admits finally. “Yes, I do.”

Jane Foster is not large to begin with, but she is proud. She holds herself up with dignity and unshakable confidence, which, undoubtedly, is what Thor had been attracted to in the first place. Now, though, she slumps forward, the fight gone from her shoulders. Now, she’s just a teenage girl, in love.

“Well nothing is going to change by telling me,” Loki snorts. He tries to be as kind as possible and manages to, at least, not sneer. “Tell him.”

Jane looks at him.

“Tell Thor you love him,” Loki says. “And see what happens.”

Jane looks resigned to her fate. Loki tries not to seem too delighted with his.

“I don’t know if I deserve a second chance,” Jane says.

Loki can see it, the cracks in her veneer.

“Well you won’t get one sitting here eating cake with me,” Loki says. Then he reaches across the table, covers Jane’s hand with his own. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” she answers more certainly this time.

“Is it the kind of love that you cannot ignore?”

“Yes,” Jane swallows.

“Is it the kind of love that could destroy you?” Loki asks softly.

Jane looks down at their hands, and closes her eyes.

“Yes,” she says after a moment.

Loki smiles.

When she opens her eyes again he looks concerned, sincere.

“Then you must tell him,” he says, leaning toward her. “If it is that kind of love, Thor deserves to know.”

*

_sif’s loft, greenwich village, manhattan, new york_

Baldur isn’t shy about asking Thor back to his place. He smiles at Thor as he helps him out of his shirt. He’s soft with his touches, reverential in the way he maps Thor’s body, worships every inch Thor lets him have.

Thor doesn’t know why he says yes. He lets Baldur lead him to his bed, not once, not twice, but half a dozen times and each time Thor thinks _do I want this?_ The answer is both obvious and out of his reach.

Baldur is obvious in his affections. Thor is indifferent in his.

When he comes home and sees Loki, draped over their couch, he wonders whether it’s worth it, the bet. Loki will snap at him or insult him or ask him what he’s doing. Sometimes, he will see Thor come back, freshly fucked, and simply smile at him. Thor craves it more than any of Baldur’s touches, craves it more than the chance of one night in Loki’s bed.

Thor’s not entirely sure all he wants is a simple fuck anymore.

He’s not sure about anything.

  
“So, wait,” Fandral says. He’s laying half on Thor and half across Sif’s couch. Sif is out somewhere, with Val or her sisters, and Volstagg has a late date with last minute college applications. No one knows where Hogun is. No one ever knows where Hogun is until Hogun appears.

There’s bottles of beers on Sif’s coffee table and a bowl that both of them have nearly worked their way through. There’s a ziplock bag of white powder, but Thor’s not in the mood.

He’s barely in the mood for anything.

He takes Loki’s necklace, thumbs the ridges in his palm.

“You’re doing _what_ with Baldur?”

Thor sighs. This entire conversation has been unbearable.

“Loki thinks it will ruin him,” Thor says and takes a swig of his beer. “If everyone finds out Baldur is fucking me. Good little Catholic boy or something.”

“Probably,” Fandral says. And then he rolls onto his side. “For a week. How much do you want to win it, the bet?”

“Technically I think I’ve already won,” Thor says with a frown.

“Your brother isn’t going to be happy with Baldur’s….ignominy,” Fandral says.

Thor raises an eyebrow.

“SAT prep,” Fandral says and Thor nods. “Anyway, Loki wants destruction. He wants...annihilation.”

“Okay,” Thor says. “You’re gonna do great on it.”

“Thanks, I’m confident,” Fandral nods. “If you want to win against him, you have to do what he would do if he could do it.”

Thor thinks about that. There’s some logic to what Fandral’s saying. Thor knows Loki better than he knows himself. Loki isn’t won by half measures or small gestures. When Loki says he wants a kingdom, what he means is that he won’t settle for less than the world.

Thor’s never met someone like that. Loki doesn’t simply ask for what he wants, he demands what he thinks he deserves. Maybe that’s good and maybe it isn’t, but it’s worthy in some way. Thor thinks he’s spent too long asking for crumbs of Odin. His fingers brush Mjölnir.

His mother had thought him worthy and his father had found him lacking. Loki is the only only who tells him to decide for himself.

Thor thinks maybe he’s been settling for his kingdoms too, when he should have been demanding something bigger.

“What do you win anyway?” Fandral asks. He reaches over for Thor’s beer and Thor gives it to him.

Thor remembers Loki in lace. He remembers Loki in everything he’s ever worn.

“Something I want,” Thor says softly.

“What will you do to get it?” Fandral asks. He stares at Thor upside down.

It only takes Thor a moment’s consideration.

“Anything.”

Fandral grins.

“In that case, I know someone who can help.”  
  
  
An hour later, Fandral opens the door and Thor has to blink in rapid succession to make sure he's not hallucinating all of this.

" _This_ is who you've been seeing?" Thor gapes.

"Oh, don't be jealous, lover," Amora says, flicking half of her blonde waves over her shoulder. It's not clear to Thor that such an action was needed, but he guesses he's not a teenage girl. Maybe it's in their code or something.

"What?" 

"Seeing is a loose term for it," Fandral says. "It's more like friends with benefits."

"Minus the friends part," Amora says cheerfully. She comes over the threshold into Sif's loft and Thor has the thought that if Sif were only here, she would murder Fandral and use Amora's body to clean the crime scene.

"What is she doing here?" Thor asks, directing his question toward his best friend.

"Fandral tells me you need an evil genius," Amora says, never mind that Thor clearly hadn't asked _her_. She circles around the room slowly, looking at Sif's home with gleaming eyes and a judgmental smirk. Thor shifts on the couch, uncomfortable.

"Fandral needs to study his SAT words more," Thor says darkly. "I didn't say I wanted an accomplice."

"Oh, honey," Amora says. She trails her fingers over Sif's table, over her shelves, over the back of her couch. Her bright green nails come to rest carefully on Thor's shoulder. She taps it twice.

"Get off me," Thor nearly growls.

"You and Loki are so _boring_ ," Amora sighs. She comes around and sits on the coffee table like it's her throne. Fandral hovers next to her. "Listen, Thorkins."

"Don't call me that."

"Whatever," Amora flips her hair again. "Let's face it, Thor. You're hot, but you don't have the mind for duplicity. Loki might not want to fuck me, but _I'm_ his best friend. Do you know why?"

"Because you're a crazy bitch?" Thor says.

"Exactly," Amora grins. "Your brother is the worst person I have _ever_ met. I _like_ him. So I'm going to help you, because if you two do not fuck sometime this century, I'm going to kill myself from all of the unresolved tension."

Fandral seems to stumble behind her.  
  
" _What?_ " he squawks.

Thor doesn't trust Amora as far as he can fucking throw her. He doesn't appreciate her condescension and he sure as fuck cannot _stand_ how she touches everything like it's her God-given right to claim anything she wants. And he definitely doesn't believe that Loki is the worst person he's ever met, not by a long fucking shot.

But she is right.

Thor is a lot of things, but a manipulative liar isn't one of them.

He doesn't have the head for duplicity or schemes. For something like that, he needs someone who can rival Loki's mental circuitry.

"What do you have in mind?" he asks slowly.

Amora grins widely.

"First, a drink," she says, licking her lips and leaning back into Fandral. "And then, I'm going to need my necklace back."

*

_saint asgardia preparatory school, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Loki bows his head, feeling the cool, morning chapel air press against the back of his neck. He isn't praying, of course, but he isn't pretending to pray either. Sometimes, Loki will come to the chapel just to get away from himself. He doesn't believe in God, but he believes in peace and quiet and, surprisingly, for a Catholic school, there is never anyone to bother him in the chapel.

It's early enough in the morning that very few people are on school grounds. It's Loki, the janitorial staff, and Headmaster Tyr, in his office or being equally useless somewhere else. 

Loki presses his fingers against his collarbone and then against his throat. He imagines a token there, a chain that he's missing. It isn't Amora's irreverent cross, but something else.

He feels empty without it.

Loki opens his eyes and finds Thor, watching him. It’s unsettling how much he was expecting it, as though the two of them cannot escape one another.

What did Loki tell Thor?

_You and I are two of a kind._

"Are you praying?" Thor asks.

"In a manner of speaking," Loki says. He shifts, gets up from his knees. "You are here early."

"I had something to do," Thor says.

"How mysterious," Loki says. He feels too calm to quarrel with his brother this morning. He feels both hollow and full, moored and adrift.

Today, he will get what he deserves.

"Brother," Thor says softly. "Do you love me?"

Loki gives Thor a half smile. Inside, his brain feels like a live wire.

"That is a heavy question for morning chapel," Loki says.

"It's the question I'm asking," Thor says.

Loki straightens his jacket and then steps forward. Thor steps with him, toward him.

A few steps and they would reach one another. Loki stops before then.

"You can ask whatever you like," Loki says. "I do not have to answer."

Loki knows the answer. He will not have it forced out of him. He will not give control of this to Thor, too. Not when Thor has everything else.

Loki thinks Thor is going to reach out and touch him, stop him, make him look at him. He almost wishes Thor would, but he doesn't.

Instead, he asks, "Are you ready?"

This time, Loki does look at him.

Thor, his magnificent, painfully beautiful, larger-than-life step brother. Not his blood, but his all the same.

_His._

He’s not sure when they got tangled like this, helplessly intertwined, nearly on fire.

Loki would carve out his heart and give it to Thor if he but asked and that's why he needs it, Mjölnir. Loki will not be the only one to lose everything here.

"For what, brother?" Loki asks.

"For the fall," Thor says.

He looks up at the ceiling and for a moment it looks like he's praying too. The light grazes softly against his cheekbones, catches in his golden hair and his light eyelashes. He looks like an angel. Loki will always look like the devil.

"Yes," Loki says. "I'm ready for it all to burn."

"Be careful, Loki," Thor says. He moves forward and, again, Loki expects him to stop him, but he doesn't. Thor is just moving, moving past.

He brushes Loki's hand as he does so.

"We're princes, not Gods. We can get burned too."

Loki's the one who stops Thor. He catches Thor's wrist and for a moment, his brother pauses.

"We're not princes, Thor," Loki says. "We're kings. And if kings burn, so do their kingdoms."

Thor watches him silently.

He breaks his hand free and walks out of the chapel.

Loki tries not to miss him.

*

The end starts like this; with a carefully placed rumor and even more carefully placed cross necklace.

  
“Hey, Mr. Coulson,” Amora says. She has half of her hair across her shoulders, her blouse unbuttoned low enough to see the top of her cleavage. She’s wearing a skirt short enough to skim the bottom of her underwear, which is anything but regulation.

Who’s going to tell her no?

“Ah, Amora,” Coulson says with little warmth and barely concealed disdain. “How can I help you?”

“I just—I didn’t know who to go to,” Amora says. Her blue eyes fill with tears.

Coulson’s contempt slides away to concern. He stands up.

“What is it?”

“I saw Baldur,” she whispers, not too quietly. “In the chapel.”

“Baldur?” Coulson asks. “What about—”

“He was—” Amora can barely choke out the words. “On his knees. With a _boy._ ”

It’s not revulsion that ripples across Coulson’s face, but it is something serious. A teacher’s devotion to rules, maybe.

“And there’s more—” she says.

“What? What is it?" 

“Come with me,” Amora says.

  
Outside Coulson’s office, the same two freshmen she’d fucked just a month ago stare at each other, eyes wide.

They scatter before Coulson and Amora come out of his office, Coulson looking frazzled, Amora’s hand on his wrist, leading the way.

*

Headmaster Tyr looks across the table at Loki, his best student, the most devoted, the most likely to one day become president and elevate Tyr and St. Asgardia’s to the upper echelons of academic achievement.

He’s shaking like a leaf.

“Headmaster,” Loki says, distraught. “I found these in Mr. Coulson’s office—I, I didn’t know what to do.”

He slides a manila envelope across the desk, his hands shaking. 

“Where is the cross that hangs on your neck, Loki?” the Headmaster asks with a frown.

“He said I wouldn’t need it,” Loki whispers. “He took it from me when—”

Loki clutches his throat and Tyr feels uneasy.

“What did he do?” Tyr asks into the silence.  

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Loki nearly begs. “I don’t want this to ruin my reputation. I just didn’t want it to continue, he—”

Tyr peels open the envelope and slides out a handful of high quality pictures.

He feels the horror break over him like an egg shell.

There’s dozens of pictures, of Amora, of Valkyrie, of Loki, of other freshmen, in various states of undress and compromising positions.

“You’re in these,” Tyr says dumbly.

“He threatened me,” Loki cries. “I didn’t know what to do. I’ve worked so hard—I just didn’t want to jeopardize my college applications.”

Tyr watches his brightest student crumple and his stomach clenches in disgust and anger. He feels sick. He had heard rumors for so long—drugs on campus, perversions in the chapel, _homosexuality_ in _his_ halls. He hadn’t realized the problem was so close to home. He had _trusted_ Coulson, had put students in his hands for years.

The Headmaster rises, shaking from anger himself.

“Where is he?” he asks. “I am calling the police.”

Loki looks up at him, watery and hopeful.

“My name, sir—?”

“We’ll protect you, Loki,” Tyr says. “Of course. Mr. Coulson will never be able to hurt you or anyone else again.”

*

“Did you hear? About Baldur?”

“Wait, no. What?”

“ _Yeah._ He was sucking someone off in the chapel. A _dude._ ”

“ _Holy shit._ ”

Whispers swirl through the hallways, a spark at first, and then a blaze, catching on fire like only rumors among teenagers can.

“I’m not surprised,” someone says.

“ _I_ am!” a different person answers.

“I knew he was too good to be true.”

“He acts so pure and virginal, but—”

“Oh come on,” says a sophomore. “Have you seen him around Thor? He’s like a puppy. He’s probably fucking him.”

Thor hears the rumors too, but he swallows and ignores them.

“Thor,” someone comes up to him, breathless. It’s a girl from one of his classes—Darcy or something. She has the biggest mouth known to man.

“Yeah?” he raises an eyebrow and opens his locker door.

“Did you do it?” Darcy asks. “Did you fuck Baldur?”

Thor could say no. He could say no now and kill the rumor, save Baldur’s reputation, salvage his own.

Thor could be a good guy.

But the thing is, Loki’s right.

Thor _isn’t_ good. It’s not a matter of worthiness or being the bigger person, it’s the simple fact that Thor doesn’t _care._ Not about this. Not about Baldur’s reputation or Jane’s feelings or anything that Dr. Banner keeps telling him he _should_ care about.

Thor only cares about one thing.

One person.

So he takes his book out and closes his locker door.

Leans against it, because he’s Thor Odinson and half of him is cool confidence and the other half is devil-may-care body language.

“Yeah,” he says with a smirk.

Darcy’s eyes widen.

“Oh,” she says. “Shit.”

“He’s pretty good,” Thor says, throwing Baldur a half-hearted bone. “For someone who was a virgin.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Darcy says, understanding. “Wait—are you bi?”

Thor smirks again.

“I’m Thor,” he says. “I’m whatever the fuck I want to be.”

He turns on his heels and finds Valkyrie waiting for him down the hallway.

*

Baldur is at his locker when the rumors swirl to a crescendo.

He’s heard them all day, the whispers, felt the looks on his back. Somehow, everyone knows about him, knows about Thor. He’s not sure if Thor is the one who told and, surprisingly, he doesn’t care.

It feels good, somehow, against his neck, the questioning, beady eyes. He feels like something’s been lifted from him, a burden he never meant to shoulder.

He sees a familiar head of blond hair and pushes through a crowd of whispering sophomores to find him.

“Thor,” he breathes out.

He’s with Valkyrie, both looking bored.

“Baldur,” Thor says.

“Thor, I have to tell you something,” Baldur says. Because this is it—if everyone is going to find out, if he’s going to fall, he’s going to do it now, he’s going to do it where Thor will understand.

Thor looks at him with something close to dispassion. It’s a far cry from the Thor he had kissed that first day, but closer to the Thor he keeps taking to bed, there, but wanting to be somewhere else.

It doesn’t change anything.

Baldur touches Thor’s sleeve, then Thor’s jaw.

“Baldur, what the fuck—” Thor says, recoiling, but Baldur presses forward, half-desperate.

There’s a crowd around them now, freshmen and sophomore and every person who has loved and hated him in the same breath. There are kids with their phones out, kids watching unabashedly, kids with their beady eyes and preconceived notions. _Thank god it’s not me,_ they’re thinking.

“I love you, Thor,” Baldur says. “I _love_ you.”

The words fall on the floor as soon as he’s said them, stale and broken between him and someone he knows will never be capable of loving him back. He can see the cracks in them, his words, and in him, his heart.

“Thor!” someone says at the same time.

Baldur stares at Thor, who’s looking back at him like he’s never seen anything more embarrassing.

“Hey, what’s all this?” Jane Foster appears at Thor’s elbow. She’s flushed, laughing, small and beautiful and perfect.

Baldur watches her slot into Thor’s side and thinks, this is it, this is how I lose him.

“Hey, I have something to ask you,” Jane says. Her face is both serious and bright with confidence, her hand already on Thor’s shoulder, where it belongs, naturally, like it was meant for it all along.

Baldur swallows. Of course. How could he ever compete with this?

Thor looks at her blankly.

“You were right,” Jane says. “I was wrong. I made a mistake, Thor. I...was too judgmental, I didn’t give you a chance.”

The crowd around them rustles, students standing shoulder to shoulder, Baldur with his heart on the floor, Jane with her hand on Thor’s shoulder, and Thor, standing rigidly in the middle of it all.

Thor with his unbuttoned shirt, jacket missing, tendrils of gold falling out of a bun, brushing cheekbones Baldur had spent nights running his fingers over, obsessing over.

“I love you,” Jane says. “I _still_ love you. Can you forgive me?”

“Thor,” Baldur says quietly.

“Thor?” Jane questions.

“I love you,” Baldur says. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“I love you.” Jane says. “I want to give us another chance. Come to the dance with me.”

Thor stands, shaking in their middle, his hands curled into fists, swaying on his feet.

He looks up and in the midst of the crowd he sees someone. Baldur doesn’t know who.

It seems everything is clattering together, the noise, the movements, the spikes in Baldur’s heart. He feels himself climb higher and higher, his expectations unrealistic, Thor loving him back, Thor taking him back, a life with him, a future with him.

Jane looks the same, an expectant look, like she expects no other answer.

They’re both loud. Hopeful. Insistent.

They look at him with pleading eyes, expecting the world of him and asking for it.

Then it comes grinding to a halt.

“No,” Thor says, finally. Then, louder, so every Tom, Dick, and iPhone can hear, “ _No._ ”

*

Amora has Coulson’s hand in hers as she appears in the middle of the circle.

“What’s happening here?” she says.

It’s surreal, all of it, like a nightmare he can’t wake himself out of.

“Baldur,” Coulson says, his voice like an iceberg.

Baldur turns from Thor automatically, his hand on his locker.

His eyes meet the counselor’s, once, and he thinks something passes between the two of them, a silent plea, maybe, a realization they’ve been caught, two flies in a web of black widows.

Baldur opens his mouth and closes it. Then everything collapses.

*

“Mr. Coulson, get away from that underaged girl,” Headmaster Tyr’s voice booms.

“ _Get away from that locker_ ,” shouts else someone and suddenly they’re surrounded by officers, dozens of them.

Baldur doesn’t get slammed against the locker, but he feels like he did.

He’s surrounded, everywhere, officers and Headmaster Tyr and his classmates, laughing, whispering, taking videos.

“Get _away_ from me,” he hears Thor growl and even now, even amidst this wreckage, he’s drawn to him, like Icarus to the sun.

He thinks Thor is yelling at an officer.

He’s not. He’s twisting his arm out of Jane’s grasp.

“You couldn’t _pay_ me to get back together with you,” he says and it’s all the cruelty Baldur can handle before he realizes someone’s touching his wrists.

He looks up blankly and finds officers at his locker, officers ransacking things, officers pulling out a cross-shaped necklace and unscrewing the lid.

They pour something out of the inside—a powdery white substance.

 _Fuck_ , one part of Baldur thinks.

 _Finally_ , another part of him exhales.

  
In one corner there’s Jane, face crumpled in mortification and in another, there’s Coulson actually being body-slammed into a locker, with some phrases thrown around—“Child pornography” “Lewd images” “Supplying cocaine” “Underaged kids” “Right to remain silent.”

He’s not the only one.

“You have the right to remain silent,” a police officer says, redirecting Baldur’s gaze to the situation in front of him—the officer, the cocaine, the necklace, the handcuffs.

Baldur can’t help it. He tips his head back and starts laughing.

*

When it all falls apart, it doesn’t do it with Bittersweet Symphony playing in the background. That’s what the movies get wrong.

When it all falls apart, it’s everyone surrounding him, staring at him, demanding something from him—his time, his attention, his love.

Thor’s head swims, his mind reeling.

“I love you,” Jane says. “I _still_ love you. Can you forgive me?”

He sees Jane’s face, months ago, in the middle of Sarabeth’s, contemptuous and unrelenting.

He sees Odin too, similarly dismissive, demanding, always demanding something from him.

_Thor, stop fucking around. Thor, stop drinking._

“Thor,” Baldur says quietly.

_Thor, get your shit together. Thor, get into an Ivy League school._

“Thor?” Jane questions.

_Thor, you’re a fuck up. Do better. Be better._

_You’re a goddamn Odinson. Act like one._

It hits him like a bulldozer. He nearly staggers from the weight of it, his hatred. For his father, for Baldur, for Jane. For Dr. Fucking Banner and for every person watching him now, beady eyes hungry for some piece of him, something they can use against him, the second they think they can.

He feels like screaming.

Thor looks up and through the crowd, overwhelmed. For a second, he thinks he sees ink black hair and green eyes.

 _Do you know your problem?_ he hears Loki ask lazily. _You have no backbone._

Loki standing in front of him, in silk, wine glass in his hand and laughter on his lips.

_Show them you are not a prince, but a king._

_Am I one?_ Thor remembers asking.

 _You could be_ , Loki answers. He reaches his hand out to Thor. _We both could be_.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and looks down to see Jane. Jane with her intelligence and kindness and never ending patience.

Right up until it did.

Jane with her patronizing ability to look at Thor and reduce him to nothing more than his greatest failures.

 _My god, it’s like talking to a child_ , she had said. _Grow up, Thor._

He’s heard that too many times, from too many people. He’s been made to feel worthless because he checked too many of one box and not enough of another.  

It’s exhausting, to both be universally loved and envied and, in the same breath, reviled.

It clamors in his head, all of it—Jane’s touch and Baldur’s face and his father’s threat and the ghost of Harvard and a bet he doesn’t want to win anymore.

In the middle of it all is the one person who has never pretended, the one person who has never demanded something of him.

Thor looks up and he does see Loki this time, a pleased smile on his face.

Thor is done pretending he is anything other than what he is and who he is. He is rich and he is beautiful and he is spoiled. He’s irresponsible and he’s reckless and he likes to have _fun_. He’s no angel, but he’s no devil either. For those who earn it, he has unshakeable loyalty.

He has an endless supply of love to give.

If Thor is childish, if he is an entitled brat, then, well, that’s what he fucking _is_.

The crowd rustles around him, louder, more restless, a pit of leeches who have never deserved him.

“I love you,” Baldur says. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“I love you.” Jane says. “Give us another chance. Come to the dance with me.”

But most of all—most of all, Thor is done lying to himself about who he wants, as though he would not give Loki his life if he but asked.

Enough. It’s all _enough_.

“No,” Thor says. And then, so everyone can hear, he growls. “ _No._ ”

In the crowd, Loki smiles widely.

Then Headmaster Tyr appears and he disappears.

*

It’s not easy work, ruining people’s lives. Loki takes no real joy in seeing the carnage, not really.

There is nothing satisfying about seeing Jane, heartbroken and humiliated, Baldur fallen, in handcuffs, Coulson, pressed against a locker, his face twisted purple in rage.

Oh, who is he kidding?

Loki closes his eyes, a grin on his face. He feels it in his blood, the buzzing of victory, the heady feeling of getting what he wants and of destroying everything in the process.

 _I will ruin you_ , he had promised, to God and to himself, in the chapel, where promises are made to not be broken.

Loki has made and kept all of his promises; every last one.

He opens his eyes and Thor is looking at him, blue eyes searching for a life raft, someone to rescue him.

This is Thor’s fight now.

Thor, who Loki would burn entire cities down for.

Thor, who is _his_.

Loki doesn’t hear what Thor says, but he sees it, when the dam finally breaks. His brother has ever held everything close to his chest, running from everything he could not control instead of controlling it for himself.

Thor had let Odin happen to him, had let Jane happen to him, had even let the bet happen to him.

But he has been staggering towards the summit for months now, lurching just steps away from the tipping point. Loki has been waiting, patiently, for him to reach him at the top.

He can see it when it finally happens, when Thor reaches the edge and throws himself over.

He plunges down from the greatest of heights and stays underwater for the briefest of moments.

And then he comes back up.

Thor chooses to be a king.

Loki has never loved anyone more.

*

_penthouse, upper east side, manhattan, new york_

Thor catches Loki’s wrist, his step brother flitting away from him, always just out of his grasp. Loki laughs, delighted, as Thor crowds him against the kitchen counter. The counter digs into Loki’s lower back and he bends backward slightly, Thor’s fingers on his pulse, his mouth curved up in pleasure.

“Did it feel good?” Thor asks. “Destroying innocent lives?”

“No one is innocent, Thor,” Loki says. He reaches up with his free hand, cups Thor’s face. “Have I taught you nothing?”

Thor turns, brushes his lips against Loki’s palm.

“Everyone wants something,” Loki says. “Altruism comes with a price. Is it not better to be plain about what you want? At least you are not lying to anyone that way.”

“You would know all about lies, _brother_ ,” Thor says and Loki laughs.

“I have never lied to you,” Loki says. Then his voice softens. “I have never needed to.”

They stand still for a moment, Loki pressed against the counter, Thor pressed against Loki. Finally, after all this time, Thor finally feels it, something intangible falling into place. Something he hadn’t realized he was missing.

“Loki,” Thor says, his voice low and Loki covers Thor’s mouth with his hand.

“Tell me,” Loki whispers. “Did it feel good? Destroying innocent lives?”

Thor looks at him plainly, darkly. He’s tempted to wash it away, say _no_. Say it’s never all right to take what you want, at the expense of others. Say no Loki, what we did was wrong. We can’t play with people’s lives as though they mean nothing.

The truth is, Loki has never needed to lie to Thor. Thor has been lying to himself all the while.

And Loki—of all people, Loki knows that.

“Yes,” Thor says finally. “Yes, it felt good.”

Loki smiles then, his mouth curving up, his happiness a visible, almost visceral thing.

“It felt good to have control,” Thor says. “It felt good _to_ control.”

“After all this time,” Loki says. “You finally understand.”

Thor wraps an arm around Loki’s back then, uses his not insignificant strength to lift him up. Loki’s legs wrap around Thor’s waist easily, his arms around Thor’s neck.

Thor presses their foreheads together and they breathe in and out simultaneously, their breaths mingling between them.

“I won the bet,” Thor says.

“Yes,” Loki replies. “As did I.”

Thor says nothing for a full minute, thinking about this and only this—that they are both here, that Loki is in his arms, that, at the end of the day, they are all each other has and all each other needs.

What could be worthier?

“Take it,” Thor says.

For a moment, Loki stills.

“What?”

Thor presses closer to the counter so that Loki can rest there, while he removes his arm from around him. Loki watches quietly, entranced, as Thor reaches around his neck and slowly tugs his necklace up.

“Thor,” Loki says quietly.

Thor looks at it then, Mjölnir in the center of a long, silver chain spooled in the middle of his palm. She glints in the light of the penthouse, each rune lit bright, the familiar small handle sticking out in the middle.

It was the last thing his mother had ever given him.

He presses it to Loki’s palm and looks at him then, really _looks_ at him.

“We are terrible together,” Thor says. “And even worse apart.”

Loki closes his fingers over Mjölnir, holds her as he would something precious, a breakable, invaluable, irreplaceable thing.

“That is what I love about us,” Thor says. “That is what I love about you. I love you, Loki. You are the best and worst, glorious and most terrible parts of me. So take it. Take everything I have, I give it to you.”

Loki takes in a breath, high and sharp, like he isn’t sure what he’s hearing or, even if he is, he doesn’t believe it. Thor can feel him in his arms, a slight tremor Loki can’t hide from him.

Loki can’t hide anything from him.

“Put it on me,” his brother commands, although it’s softer than it should be, words breaking on shared shores.

Thor takes it from him, unclasps the chain from the back and puts it around Loki’s neck.

Mjölnir sits on Loki’s chest, bright and at home, not a taunt, but a promise.

“We will burn the world together, you and I,” Loki says, wickedly, triumphantly. He sounds drunk, drunk on power, drunk on lust.

Thor runs a hand through Loki’s hair. It falls against his shoulders, curls resting at the top.

“Tell me,” Thor says. “Say it.”

“I love you, brother,” Loki says and he winds his way closer. “I love you, you are _mine_.”

“Yes,” Thor breathes out. “I am yours.”

Thor brushes his thumb against Loki’s mouth, drags his bottom lip down and leans closer.

“Now, I believe I won a bet.”  
  
Loki smiles, lips curving against Thor’s finger.

“What was it that you had won again?” Loki says, winding his legs tighter around him, hips flush to Thor’s upper abdomen.

“Something that’s rightfully mine,” Thor says and kisses him.  
  
  
The thing about kissing Loki is that it sweeps through him. 

It sweeps through both of them, Loki's hands in his hair, Thor's tongue in his mouth. Thor presses Loki back into the counter and something knocks over, but Loki's nails dig into Thor's back and Thor hisses with pleasure into his mouth, ignores whatever's seeping onto the floor and continues kissing him, swallowing Loki's heat and little sounds that go straight to Thor's stomach. 

He kisses Loki ravenously, like he can eat him alive, just there, in his arms, up against the counter. Loki arches into his touch and the shock runs through Thor, a spark to his gut. Loki breaks the kiss and lets Thor breathe harshly until he finds his ear.   
  
"Take what you have earned, brother," he whispers and Thor nearly blacks out with need.

His fingers fumble with Loki’s pants, deftly undoing the top button and lowering the zipper with his index and thumb.

Loki inhales and Thor can feel it against him, his body drawn tight. But he doesn’t stop him.  
  
Thor stops, thumb on the bottom of he zipper. 

“I want to see you,” he says, eyes dark, voice low. He looks up into Loki’s face and then slowly traces his way down, past his throat, over his chest, down, down, down, down to the pale curve of his hip bones, the way they slope into a small v at his lower body.

Loki sucks his lower lip into his mouth and Thor follows the movement, entranced. He tilts his head, eyes bright, as though studying him. Thor watches that too.

“Do you want me to show you?” Loki asks. His tongue darts out, wetting lips already slightly swollen.

Thor tenses at that, hands going to Loki’s narrow waist and tightening. He's nearly dizzy with need, almost unable to express himself for the want of it. Loki laughs and puts two hands to Thor’s chest, presses him back until he can slip off the counter.

He’s not shy about it. He hooks his thumbs into the loops of his pants. They shimmy down his waist in a tease, collecting in a heap of black at his feet.

He’s not wearing anything underneath, and Thor’s eyes skim down, tracing the v past the thatch of dark hair, to his cock, flushed pink and curving slightly to Thor’s right.

Loki seems cool and calm, but he's betrayed in the way he breathes, shallowly, as though waiting for judgement. His color is high; Thor can see rose climbing toward the curls of Loki’s dark hair, and god, he _wants._

“Loki,” Thor breathes and takes a step forward. Loki holds still, body nearly swaying from anticipation or awaiting judgment, Thor couldn’t say. The silver of Thor’s---formerly Thor’s--necklace sits in the hollow between his collarbones.

“Are you going to make me wait?” Loki asks softly and Thor realizes he has his hand on Loki’s throat. How it got there he couldn't say, but he curls his fingers around, as though he can leave a print there. Something to say this is it. Something to show this, and everything else, is all mine.

Loki’s whole body warms and Thor learns that Loki colors everywhere when he’s aroused. A small smile plays on his lips, seemingly smug, but with something else too, an uncertainty Thor’s never seen before. He gnaws on his bottom lip and maybe that’s the tell, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Thor takes it in, the splash of white teeth against pink lips, the small inhale of his breath and the color in his cheeks, the way that his hair curls against the top of his shoulders.

He memorizes this.

He memorizes Loki.

“Take your shirt off,” he says softly.

Loki watches his eyes closely and takes a step back. Thor watches the motion hungrily, the way he holds the bottom of his shirt and moves it up and over his head in one smooth movement.

Thor sees her again, then, Mjölnir shining in the hollow of his throat, nestled between the sharp wings of Loki’s collarbones. He feels it in his breastbone, the weight of her worth and who has earned it. It had been worth it, to destroy everything, for this.

“Like what you see?” Loki asks.

Thor’s fingers move against Loki’s throat then, nails brushing against the hollow before running over the edges of the small, silver hammer.

“You know what you look like,” Thor says quietly.

Loki tilts his head again and Thor can feel his body trembling, they’re so close.

“I believe you promised me,” Loki says, barely a whisper. His breath moves pieces of Thor’s hair come loose. “In lace and out of it. Was that not what you said?”

“Yes,” Thor says. He moves his fingers back up, thumb brushing Loki’s bottom lip. Loki opens his mouth this time and Thor’s thumb slips in. " _Yes._ "

Loki runs his tongue against the pad of Thor’s finger and then Thor is leaning forward, pressing his mouth against Loki’s again, sucking a kiss from him, hot and needy. Loki wraps his arms around Thor’s shoulders again and suddenly they’re standing flushed, Loki completely bare and Thor with too many clothes between them.

Thor presses his hands to Loki’s lower back, drags him even closer and the kiss turns hard then, electric and desperate, Thor’s tongue brushing against Loki’s, their teeth clashing, everything hot, his very skin on fire.

“Have you ever watched your come drip down someone’s leg?” Loki whispers suddenly, and Thor feels it rattle around his head, words he can’t process, but his body certainly can. It goes straight to his dick and he groans around the rush of blood. He can't think. He can't  _think_.

Loki raises the aforementioned leg so that the knob of his knee rubs against the bulge in Thor’s pants.

It’s too rough and not rough enough, and Thor’s mouth slips open. He mouths at Loki’s pale skin, porcelain and unblemished. When he gets to his shoulder, he bites down.

Loki lets out a sharp inhale and then exhales shakily, his nails digging into Thor's neck. He likes this. His skin may be porcelain, but he isn't. Loki has always been far from delicate.

“Turn around,” Thor says, and Loki laughs, hair falling across his face.

“Get naked,” Loki counters, and Thor bullies his way between Loki’s legs, digging his fingers into the soft of Loki’s belly.

“You wanted a backbone,” Thor hisses, and Loki’s eyes widen infinitesimally as Thor drags his zipper open and down just low enough to free his cock.

Loki’s gaze travels downward and he can’t stop the catch of air in his throat.

“If you don’t want it to hurt, sweetheart,” Thor says, voice hot against the shell of Loki’s ear, pressing two fingers up against the warmth of Loki’s hole, crinkled and unforgiving, “I’m gonna need you slick.”

Loki, always the very vision of poise and control, can’t help the delicious, almost needy sound that escapes from his throat. It’s like honey to Thor’s ears. He’s instantly addicted, needing to hear it again the moment the note fades.

“I’m gonna love seeing you split open on me,” Thor says conversationally. He’s going to worship Loki, one day. He’s going to spread him across his bed and take his time, kissing and memorizing every part of his body.

Today, after the ruins of everything, he needs something else.

Loki’s chest heaves, his green eyes bright, his limbs slightly trembling.

Today, they both need something else.

Thor stifles a nearly joyous laugh at how _wet_ Loki’s getting, and he thinks about holding his tongue but decides _fuck it,_ much as he does everything. The time for manner is past. Now Thor wants and now Thor will take.

“You’re so wet,” he says and runs his teeth along the Loki’s earlobe. “How long have you wanted me, brother?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Loki says, irreverent as ever. “You’re never going to get to fucking me if you don’t stop talking so much.”

Thor grins and presses a kiss to the hollow behind Loki’s ear. Loki shivers and Thor _feels_ it.

He pulls back.

“Got any lube?” Thor says, and he pats himself down in agitation.

Loki takes a deep breath, cock fully hard and twitching, jerking even. Thor loves it already. He wraps one callused palm around him and Loki gasps, thrusting into his fist.

“Or should I just use this,” Thor teases, the wetness collecting on his skin.

“You’re an asshole,” Loki says, and Thor grins.

“Just the way you made me,” Thor can’t help but add with a low laugh and Loki makes an agreeable nose. His forehead pressed to Thor’s shoulder. He tries not to gasp as he pumps his hips and, remarkably, fails. The sound comes out of him unbidden, like a secret Thor has unlocked.

“Go to your room and get it,” Loki says, “I want you to fuck me right here.”

Thor is loathe to let go, but he does so anyway, sprinting to his room and upending his drawers just for that travel tube of Astroglide.

He empties half on three fingers on the way back to their untarnished kitchen, and when he re-enters and sees Loki, he curses.

Loudly.

Loki’s spread, stomach first on the counter, toes barely brushing the floor. His hair is coiled beside his shoulders and he’s got two thin fingers flexing in his own hole, jagged whimpers leaking from his throat.

He’s sin.

When Thor goes to hell, it will absolutely be because of him.

Thor’s cock aches, rubbing against the tight seam of his pants, and he replaces Loki's fingers with two of his own with little preamble, screwing Loki wider than he can take.

Loki muffles a cry into his arm, and Thor leans heavily over his body so he can watch his step-brother’s face twist, taking the pain beautifully.

“Let me hear you cry,” Thor says, and Loki curses as Thor scissors his fingers, thicker than Loki’s own. Loki shakes against him, but doesn't.

“Hold yourself open so I can get in there,” Thor says, tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth.

“You’re an animal,” Loki gasps, forehead and cheeks damp with sweat. His hair is caught between his pink lips and Thor can’t help but shove him down further in search of a kiss, more clashing of teeth than affection.

It helps though, the desperate, wild feeling rising in his chest.

 _Mine_ , Thor thinks. _This is mine_.

“ _Thor_ ,” Loki hisses.

Thor taps the thick head of his cock against Loki’s hole and his step brother hisses again. It’s already red and slightly swollen.

Thor plans to ruin it.

“Hold onto something,” he commands, low and firm, and for once, Loki does exactly what he’s told.

His thin fingers grasp the edge of marble and Thor pushes through. It’s like sinking a knife into hot butter. For a second they lay like that, utterly still, bodies molded together.

Thor still fully clothed.

“Fuck,” Loki says. “ _Move_. Sometime this century.”

“God,” Thor says, hips trembling as he sinks to the root. “ _Fuck._ ”

Loki flushes under him, his entire body pink, shaking, a thin sheen of sweat covering almost all of him. He seems taut with unspent need and chased-for pleasure.

It’s the most arousing thing Thor has ever seen. Loki’s hands have fallen from their position and his mouth is wide on a gasp.  
  
" _Move_ ," Loki nearly growls this time and Thor does it, he moves like his very being depends on it, sharp, messy movements in and out, their bodies molding together and coming apart. There's no finesse, but there's no finesse to this situation, to taking your pleasure from your step brother and ringing his from him. 

Loki lets out soft groans and Thor mirrors it, fucks into him with rapidly increasing speed, chasing a feeling, satisfying a need. Loki feels tight under him and Thor pauses to catch his breath.

He doesn't let himself stop. He fumbles a hand underneath the counter and finds Loki’s cock, tight and flexing in his grasp. He’s so wet it instantly collects in strings.

He pauses.  
  
“You’re gonna come,” Thor says dumbly, and Loki shudders beneath him at the vibration that travels through him from the sound of Thor’s voice.

“You are,” Loki says, green eyes slightly wide, maybe a little manic, “so fucking big.”

There’s no malice in it, none at all, and Thor would laugh if he wasn’t intent on being otherwise occupied. He fucks in again, once, twice, and then gathers Loki’s wrists in one hand, stapling slender fingers against the small of Loki’s back.  

“You feel so good,” Thor says. His voice sounds as wrecked as he feels. It sounds reverential. "Hold on."

Loki’s body moves as Thor fills him, in and out, fast and heavy drags that Thor has perfected over the years.

They fit together like this, moving in tandem, breathing loud in both of their ears.

“I’m gonna come,” Loki says suddenly.

“On my dick?” Thor asks, and Loki growls.  It sounds more like begging.

Thor attaches his mouth to the vulnerable skin of Loki’s neck and bites down, suckling a purple bruise to the surface. He wants Loki to wear his mark right next to Mjölnir, both of them interchangeable.

Loki hisses at the sudden pain, a sharp gasp and a low _fuck_ , and then he’s coming, body spasming and jerking, high whines building in his throat, Thor’s name desperate in his mouth. 

Thor fumbles for his dick and strokes him through the end, come viscous on his hand.

Loki’s tight hole is a cruel torture, and when Thor draws back enough to see the mark he left, he almost comes too, every last bit tucked up inside Loki’s bruised body. He holds himself back, just barely.

He holds Loki in place with his free hand, the other still tight around his wrists.

“You bruise so easy,” Thor sighs, and Loki makes a sound, a little like he’s broken.

“Shut up,” Loki mumbles, but he already sounds spent, a lazy curl in his voice that Thor has never heard before.

“Loki,” Thor says and presses a kiss to his neck. One and then another and then, when Loki is still like this, boneless and pliable, his constant tense fire grown soft in the haze of post-orgasm, he does it again.

“You’re still in clothes,” Loki says with a lazy laugh. “You dick.”

Thor laughs too and tries to kiss him again, but Loki reaches behind him, his nails on Thor’s cheek.

“I will have you,” he says and Thor stills. “In and out of clothes.”

The words curl in Thor’s belly, hot and tight.

“Now,” Loki says--no, demands. “Finish.”

And Thor, who has been never wanted anything more, and nothing less, and bucks against every restraint cast about him--he does.

He listens.

  
Loki does as he promises, for Loki never turns back on a bet and he certainly never turns back on a promise.

Once he regains control of his limbs and Thor his breath, he tucks his nails under the buttons to Thor’s shirt, pops them off one by one, as though money is no matter at all.

He shoves the shirt over his step brother’s shoulders and he takes him in then, the slopes and dips of muscles, the curve of his arms, the way he stares at Loki hungrily, like he could never want for anything so long as he has this--so long as he has him.

And Loki, who craves that worship, who could go to bed every night on a prayer from Thor’s body, he winds his arms around Thor’s neck and lifts himself up onto his cross.

He kisses him, licks into his mouth, and then trails his lips across Thor’s jaw, tongue and teeth grazing the skin until it’s pink.

He reaches his ear and whispers into it.

“Take me to bed, brother,” he says. “Make a believer out of me.”

Thor looks at Loki  the way Loki has only imagined, the way that is only for him now, a look he _owns_.

His eyes darken and his lips curve into a smile.

Like a king, delivered his kingdom.

*

  
_**epilogue**_

  _sif’s loft, greenwich village, manhattan, new york_

Sif sits on one couch with Valkyrie on her lap, as usual. Volstagg is sprawled across one, a bottle of beer in his hand, while Fandral has Amora sitting on the arm of his chair, half draped on him. Hogun is, as ever, missing. He’ll show up when he wants to be found.

Thor has never viewed himself as royalty before now, but there’s no denying that this is his court. Everyone looks at him lazily, not demanding or judging, but with bemusement or a slight roll of their eyes. In some cases, it’s outright disdain.

“If I have to hear about your daddy issues and family angst one more time, I’m going to set something on fire,” Val says. She’s leaning against the arm of the couch, her legs spread out in front of her. Sif has a hand in her lap, another in her hair. 

“Babe, if you’re going to set something on fire, don’t say it out loud,” Sif says.

“I’m sick of this,” Val says. “I can’t stand it anymore. If I have to see his face look like this every day, I should at least be drunk for it.”

“Are you not drunk?” Fandral says with a smile. “I’m drunk.”

Sif snorts and Val growls.

“Oh dear,” Loki says. “What have you done to Valkyrie?”

Loki is tucked into Thor’s side, his head on Thor’s chest, Thor’s arm around him.

It was easy enough to make room for Loki, in every aspect of his life and, somehow, easier still to tell his friends he was now in love with and fucking his step brother.

In Fandral’s words, “I’m going to be honest with you, since you’re my best friend, but I really thought you two were fucking this whole time.”

In Valkyrie’s words, “Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t fucking care about the theatrics of your life, Odinson.”

Perhaps most telling had been Hogun himself. He had simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“We have an understanding,” Thor says.

“We most certainly fucking do not,” Val says. “Open your fucking envelope so I never have to hear about this again.”

Thor turns the letter over in his hand. There’s a crimson H in the corner, the Harvard crest.

Loki is relaxed in his arms, uncharacteristically patient and calm.

Headmaster Tyr had told him the good news last night. Baldur had been stripped of his honors, his recommendation withdrawn. He would have been expelled altogether, had it not been for his family’s money.

Tyr had apologized to Loki multiple times, had told him Yale should have been his all along.

The celebration sex had been something to behold. Thor doesn’t know what the maids are going to make of the broken furniture, but hopefully they tell Odin.

“Would you like me to open it for you?” Loki asks. “I am inclined to agree with Valkyrie.”

“Ugh,” Val says from Sif’s lap.

“I am not thrilled about it either, I assure you,” Loki says.

“No,” Thor says. “This is mine.”

Loki tilts his head back to look at him. He taps a finger against his lips.

Thor takes a fortifying breath, leans down and kisses him.

“Good luck,” Loki says.

“I love you,” Thor murmurs into the kiss and someone—probably Valkyrie—blows a disgusted raspberry.

“Mmm, me too,” Loki says. He presses another firm, possessive kiss against Thor’s mouth and then pulls away. “I hope it says whatever will cause Odin the most amount of pain.”

“Thanks...I think,” Thor says with a frown. He’s actually not sure what would be worse, to humiliate his father by not attending college, or by getting into the best college in the country without changing a single thing about himself.

Loki looks pleased and places his hand on Thor’s thigh.

“Open it!” Fandral says and his stupid, misbegotten, idiot friends, and his stupid, misbegotten, idiot step brother, start chanting _open it! Open it!_

Thor sticks this thumb into the envelope’s seam and slides it open.

 _Dear Mr. Odinson_ , it starts. _We are pleased to inform you_ —

*

There’s usually a moral to these stories. It doesn’t pay to ruin others’ lives. Kindness is the most underrated virtue. Good will win, in the end.

Those are all naïve, of course, and much less fun, besides.

The real moral is something else entirely. Maybe, handsome, entitled, rich boys always get their way. Or, boys will be boys and kings will be kings. Thor will go to Harvard and Loki will go to Yale and, one day, Odin will realize his son is his father’s son, after all. No one will ever face real consequences, because consequences exist only for mortals and these boys, well, they’re practically gods.

Maybe it’s not a moral at all, but an admission, an acceptance that there’s their reality and there’s ours. Some people fly close to the sun and it’s the sun that gets burned.

In this case, Loki would say, there is a moral, and it’s a great one. He has spent the last three years working toward it.

The moral to this story, according to Loki himself, then, is this:  
  
No good deed goes unpunished, evil always wins, and always, always wait to fuck your step brother.

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title based on "Sanctify" by Years & Years.  
> \--Thank you again to Riko! Check out the fanmix. Seriously. 
> 
> \--Thank _you_ for reading! If you enjoyed this content, feel free to come roll around in Marvel fandom with me at [@spacerenegades on Tumblr](http://spacerenegades.tumblr.com)!


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